Mario Casas took advantage of the pandemic break to write, together with the Belgian actress Deborah François, the script for My Solitude Has Wings, the film that marks his debut as a director and that premiered this Friday in Spanish theaters. He thought of the story so that his brother Óscar would star in the role of Dan, a young man with the vein of an artist who survives in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Barcelona beating up jewelry stores with his friends Vio (candela González's extraordinary debut) and Reno (Farid Bechara). When his grandmother passes away and his father is released from prison, his whole world falls apart and old demons awaken in him.
The film surprises above all for the freshness and spontaneity transmitted by the cast in this story of self-improvement with autobiographical overtones, although the director confesses to La Vanguardia that "everything was fairly measured. What we have played a lot has been in rehearsals and the casting. There they have flown and flown, but there has been little room for improvisation". Casas, who made his debut as an actor 17 years ago under the command of Antonio Banderas in El camino de los ingleses, was "very clear" on how he wanted to make the film, "with non-professional actors, the only Oscar, and immerse him in a realistic and manners. I wanted to follow the kids with a camera on my shoulder, without missing anything, and be on top of them all the time".
The Goya winner for Best Actor for You Will Not Kill wanted to set the film in Barcelona, the city where he lived between the ages of 5 and 18. "I know the periphery very well because I grew up in it. I have breathed in the neighborhood and the story has a lot to do with me. I have taken those words, those emotions and put them on paper. Óscar's character has another family and he does not have nothing to do with me, but those fears and that search to find out who he is and what he wants to do happened to me with his age, too, before I went to Madrid. They make that trip to Madrid towards maturity, they know that they will never be able to return to the neighborhood and they will have to take control of their lives.
Directing his brother "has been wonderful, a dream. I already knew the talent he has as an actor, but the truth is that he surprised me because he has left his soul, fully trusting me." He told her that they would gradually build the character, not to be in a hurry. "I asked him to lose weight - it was eight kilos - and to shave his head. His is a character who has to show everything with his eyes and you don't really know where he is, what he really wants. He is a tormented boy and in the end it ends up exploding".
My loneliness has wings talks about Dan's fears and insecurities, but also about friendship, art, and family. "He is a character as an adult but at the same time a child." Óscar, 24, has been in front of the camera since he was 7 and says that at first "I didn't see myself on paper and I thought Mario was wrong by choosing me. After conversations and rehearsals and understanding who Dan really is and his sensitivity I gained more confidence and began to understand that there are no barriers as an actor, that with truth and sensitivity you can get there".
The title of the film is a reference by Casas to his dream of flying and also "to that loneliness that we all live and that I lived at 18 when I went to Madrid to find a life as an actor. It is the moment in which I had I have to make my own decisions and take wings, fight to achieve my dream. And I've been lucky." The casting to find the co-stars lasted a year and a half. "It is one of the processes that I liked the most. I fell in love with Candela. At first she arrived very shy and after several tests I took her to Madrid and I saw her chemistry with Farid too. We have played very little with the text, I wanted to let them be."
Actually, Candela is the great discovery of the film and points to Goya as a revelation actress. This young woman from Malaga comes from the world of music, she has no acting training and says that "I would never have considered being an actress and now that I have experienced it, it seems to me a wonderful profession. I am happy to have gone to the casting because if I had not regretted it a lot When life puts something like that before you, you have to embrace it." She points out that Mario "has awakened in me a confidence that I didn't have before. I was scared and making the film has made me feel more secure." She defines Vio as "a girl who is trying to find her place and, even if she goes against all odds, she fights for it and it is not easy for her".
For Mario Casas, My Solitude Has Wings "is a small film that talks about young kids and what I would love as a director is for people to appreciate all the actors because they have done a beautiful job. The most important thing has been them." He admits that he thought that during the filming he would have a "much worse" but both he and the entire team have learned to work things out. "I have been very supported and it has been a precious experience. The most beautiful thing is that the way I see the profession has changed. And I have discovered and the relationship with my brother has strengthened much more."
After the experience, he has no doubt that he wants to do it again with Óscar at the helm in another place and with a completely different character". The youngest member of the Casas clan also acknowledges that filming under his brother's orders has been very special. " I thought I knew my older brother and suddenly I saw things about him that I didn't know. I have seen him with an open heart before me and a team and the filming has changed us as brothers forever."
