He lived through two wars. She was a prisoner in various Nazi camps. She exceeded one hundred and she dedicated most of that long existence to fighting injustice and fighting so that the abuses and atrocities of the 20th century are not forgotten. Neus Català is already a legend. Carme Martí novelized her story in Un cel de plum (Amsterdam Llibres) and now Miquel Romans has taken her to the cinema in a film with the same title and with Nausicaa Bonnín as the protagonist, which competes in the official section of the BCN Film Fest.
Un cel de lead begins in 1945 when Neus returns to his parents' house in the French countryside. The family had fled Spain after the Civil War and settled in France. The former prisoner still wears the striped uniform of the camp and as she adjusts to life in freedom she recalls her detention, her participation in Resistance activities, her separation from her husband and her stay in the Flossenbürg labor camp where , along with other detainees, was in charge of manufacturing and sabotaging Nazi weapons.
"I knew the history of Català, but I had not delved into it, so when I read Martí's book I was very shocked and I understood that there was a possible film there," Romans explains in an interview with La Vanguardia. The director, who had already shot commercials and some documentaries, acquired the rights to the novel and later consulted other sources to write the script, which he signs with Lydia Zimmermann. Martí advised them during the writing process.
After being denounced by the pharmacist of the town where she lived, Català was confined in the Ravensbrück camp where she remained for a few months. She was later transferred to "the armaments factory in Flossenbürg, where she spent two years". Romans has focused the film on that period "because it was the most unknown and, at the same time, the most important, because Neus was the one who organized the sabotage."
Unlike Ravensbrück, Flossenbürg "was not an extermination camp, but a work camp where they sent the healthiest and strongest prisoners, to put it mildly, it was a slightly friendlier place, the first thing that surprised Neus and her companions at arrived is that they were given a hot soup”.
But the stay in that place was hard, as was the youth of Català whose husband died the same day of the liberation. She dedicated the rest of her life to "preventing the horror of Nazism from being forgotten and the goal of the film is to convey her legacy as a symbol of many other women who have fought for memory," says Romans.
And he adds that “Neus photographed herself after the war in a prisoner's uniform. Many people covered up what had happened, but she made the opposite gesture, which in the long run has become a fundamental act of historical memory, a very clear message: 'one day I was a prisoner and I will never forget that'” .
