The Cannes festival applauds the fantastic realism of the Spanish

The Cannes festival is becoming an important platform to publicize Spanish filmmakers.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
20 May 2022 Friday 08:46
5 Reads
The Cannes festival applauds the fantastic realism of the Spanish

The Cannes festival is becoming an important platform to publicize Spanish filmmakers. If last year Clara Roquet participated in Critics' Week with her debut feature Libertad, which later won her the Goya for best new director, in addition to four Gaudí awards, this time it is Elena López Riera who has amazed at the prestigious competition with his first feature film, El agua, which competes for the Camera d'Or in the Directors' Fortnight.

This morning's showing has been applauded by media such as Le Monde, which has published that the film "causes a real spell." It is not the first time that López Riera has visited the Croisette. The woman from Alicante already did it in 2015 with her short film Pueblo, then she took Las vísceras to Locarno and won there in 2021 with Those who wish, which was also in San Sebastián.

Hours before this Friday's showing, he confessed to La Vanguardia that he was "very nervous and very happy to bring to Cannes" a film that I have made in my town with my family and friends." And the fact is that El agua is shot in Orihuela, a place that has suffered various floods over time, and there he portrays a summer in which the adolescent Ana goes out with a boy, a relationship that is not viewed favorably by some of the town's inhabitants, who believe that both the young woman ( Luna Pamiés) like her mother (Bárbara Lennie) and her grandmother (Nieve de Medina) are cursed. Written together with the film critic Philippe Azoury -who also reserves a role in the film-, Water wanders between realism, fantasy and the documentary, with the aim of "continuing to explore my town as I had already done in my previous short films and in particular the relationship with water. Orihuela is an agricultural region of orange and lemon trees and it rains very little, so the water is needed but it is feared that it will come torrentially. And it is happening more and more frequently due to climate change. What are we doing wrong for this to happen so often?" He asks himself as a reflection.

The film revolves around an old popular belief that some women disappear in every flood because they have "the water inside", they follow the call of the river to go to it and delve into its depths. "If I have been interested in trying to tell stories, it is thanks to the way the women in my family have told them to me. No one has taught me how to make movies. The only people who have made me want to tell the world in a particular way They have been my grandmothers, my aunts and my neighbors and I humbly try to reproduce it. I like to tell a world in which fantastic and mythological elements are mixed with everyday life".

She adds that "in many of the legends and popular tales that are being transmitted, they have to do with the female body and always to control us. In the end, everything always falls on us. How can we not be afraid if they tell us to be afraid? of doing things? And many times we ourselves are the ones who transmit it. It's very complex".

He says that the character of Ana, played by the newcomer Luna Pàmies, has a mixture of both. "I met Luna when she was 15, she is now 18 and we have worked a lot together on her role. I come from the documentary and I really like listening." He came across this lively young woman with curly dark hair at the town festivals. "She didn't show up for the casting at first, but then she came back. She was predestined," she says with a wide smile. With Lennie and Nieve she really wanted to work "but you think they won't want to because they're famous. In the end everything has been easier", she points out.

For López Riera there was always "that intention of mixing professional actors with non-professionals because it enriches you more, it's a way to get out of the comfort zone." To give credibility to that very feminine nucleus that the actresses make up, they spent a lot of time together. "We don't work so much the dialogues as the fact of generating spaces, looks, caresses... I don't know how to make movies. I have worked in a very intuitive way the relationships between women. I wanted to show the lights and the shadows, not wanting to look like you your mother or that your daughter looks like you. All that love-hate relationship between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons".

Nor does the film escape the precarious employment situation that young people find themselves in today. Ana affirms that she is afraid to always see the same road. There is a desire to flee, to seek a better place. "I think we have left a pretty shitty world, really. Ecologically and economically speaking. And yet they continue on. We met these boys on the way to adulthood with a mask and locked up at home. It is very strong. There is a a general feeling of discomfort and bewilderment, of having a fairly limited horizon", he admits.

And what do you think of all those spooky legends when they were told to you? "I went through all the states. At first I didn't want to believe it, it's absurd, but on the other hand it's inside you. Since I don't have an answer, I've made a movie, which is in turn a question. It's not so easy to get rid of the weight of inheritance. Asked about future projects, the director declares that first she wants to recover from this whole process, "which has been very long, and I am a slow person. I don't think you have to make movies all the time. I really like living," she concludes between laughs. It's time to savor the moment.


4