We started well… Yes, I understand from you that I have a round, extraordinary team. Cinema is a job for many.
Found the rural drama Galicia2010, as Cela did Estremadura1940. Have we developed so little in our hectic history of 70?
We even regressed in aspects like violence and xenophobia: These are innate instincts in humans.
They say uncertainty is the hallmark of your films, aren’t there even good guys and bad guys in this gruesome tale of ‘As bestas’?
Life is full of cruel events and we look for the “reasons” of evil: we wonder why a person who loves his son or brother, wife, would commit such atrocities. It is true that sometimes these “reasons” do not exist, but these are less interesting characters from a cinematic point of view; Those who are motivated and mind-loaded are those who can question the audience. Quick decisions like those made on Twitter are lazy and harmful and fuel extremism by filling us up with reasons.
Did you meet the murderers and ask why?
No, no, I was scared to death. We read the news, we wrote the script by fictionalizing the information we did not have. We met with his widow, Margo Pool, first to let him know that we were making the movie and that we hoped not to disturb her, and finally to show her at her own home in Santoalla, Ourense.
Uncertainly increasing the need for wind energy against Isn’t bird migration a solution to this?
Of course there are experts, but my common sense tells you that this is an economic problem of wild capitalism. We are surprised when nothing happens for money.
His protagonist (Luis Zahera) commented while reading the script: “Look what a vision of Galicia!”. Have you received criticism for your image of Galicians?
I read them, yes: there are people who are hypersensitive to the question of belonging. But they also said he got a very accurate portrait of a Galician village. This story, with its smell and color, can take place anywhere in the world; It occurs in Texas and also in an African town.
Was Margo Pool able to forgive?
It’s a very sensitive thing that I can’t answer on her behalf. So much inner peace I sensed in him, and that can only be achieved through forgiveness. I don’t know if I could afford such a thing.
Do you suggest anything other than ambiguity to beat hate?
I don’t recommend fighting hate. Making a movie evokes a lot of emotion in you, but your job is purely cerebral: you have to get rid of facts, not analyze them in that sense, but tell stories that will disturb or question the audience.
Why do you associate the event with ‘A rapa das bestas’? Is this ritual the ancestral origin of the pure macho spectacle or what is it?
Not at all, the origin, on the contrary, was a women’s initiative. At one point there were no men left in the village, and the women had to go to the mountains to fetch the horses, rid them of their wolves, and save them from the plague. I’ve lived with these people and I can assure you that they do so because of their great love for the land and animals.
The ritual that took place in Sabucedo, Pontevedra, which wasn’t even on the scene. Then where is the link?
We set out to explore Galicia and found this very beautiful and brutal image of Arapa: how young men and women immobilize the animal power of a horse. We broke the context and established a parallel. It’s a very plastic display of how far human atrocities can go.
The “respect” of these men towards women in his story is astounding. Did you mean to describe the Oedipus complex or did it really happen like that?
I would speak of fear, not respect: misogyny is not even a matter of hatred, but of fear of women. Violence always comes from an inferiority complex.
Is there anything that impresses you as much as your mother’s photograph, the size of the light?
I’d like to say yes because it’s prettier, but the thing that impresses me the most is that they’re apart and my dad takes me to the movies to entertain me during the hours he’s with me, and he avoids talking. When I was little, I never associated that camera of my mother with the movies I watched with my father.
He is preparing a short series on the Spanish Civil War. What would you do if you were Russian or Ukrainian: hit or leave?
In the context of the Civil War, I constantly ask myself the question: What would I do if a group of soldiers illegally and brutally revolted against a democratic republic? I would like to say that I cannot shoot at you, but the right suspicion arises: if someone attacks something so unfairly and barbarously, wouldn’t I start fighting against it? I guess some circumstances force you to flee and others let you stay.