Jota saw him [cantante y guitarrista de la banda] and he actually came to the premiere. But he was dreaming of another movie: He wanted a conceptual disco-style movie about how a character abandoned by his partner can escape the pain of life with drugs, creativity and love. The film of a band making an album did not attract much attention because it seems normal to me, this is daily life, I do not find it interesting. But I told them from the very beginning: “We will make the movies we want with the same freedom you make your albums. If that’s not the case, we won’t make any movies.” Even though it wasn’t the movie he wanted us to make, I know that this movie brought him a lot of success.
So what was the point of devoting so much effort and time to this story?
There are many things. First, my admiration for music. I thought this project was a way to spend a lot of time living with musicians, that being in contact with people from different disciplines inspired me and helped me get cinematic ideas. And another thing that interests me is the Granada line, the line from Lorca, it goes through Val Del Omar, it goes through Morente, Lagartija Nick and goes to Los Planetas. For me, it was a brutal change in the way I understood art and life. This line is people who always try not to repeat stereotypical models, who always continue their search at the point of incompatibility… I wanted to establish a dialogue with this tradition in the film.
The second prize redeems this aspect of him as a documentary filmmaker at many points.
I really want to make a documentary right now. I’m actually working on a few, but especially one about flamenco and modernity. We did a lot of documentation with the art team to recreate the Granada of that time, and there are details Los Planetas fans will recognize and enjoy. For example, El Planta Baja, where they held their first concert in their history, burned down; It still works but has a different front and interior and we saved them. And the guitar played by Dani Báñez [que incorpora a Jota en la película] The guitar that Jota made the album with, the keyboards that Banin had when he made the album… And besides all this super laborious work, there are other invented, intuitive or outright arbitrary things.
Rock and roll is a team effort, like cinema, right?
I had never thought about it until today, but Second Prize is like Richard Donner’s Lady Halcon: Do you remember the slogan “They are doomed to live forever together and always apart”? That’s what happens to Jota and Florent: they need each other, they love each other, they adore each other but at the same time they constantly want to break up and they can’t stand each other anymore but 30 years later I’m still there. The team members saw ourselves reflected: It was the story of a band wanting to make an album, we wanted to make a movie, we were trying to get to New York to shoot the finale while there was budget, and they managed to finish it. The album was recorded and mixed in New York. York… After all, teamwork is very important for both parties.
So, is the Second Prize given to people who are not fans of The Planets?
Clear. In fact, we experienced this during the shooting as well: There were people in the technical team who were from different generations, younger or from other countries, who did not know the planets and were able to explore them. And we showed it to our friends who weren’t fans, and they liked the movie for what it was, whether it was what we said or not.
Besides all this, there is another curiosity: How do you see the inclusion of streaming platforms in cinema?
They want us to believe that some supports hurt others. This has never happened in football: everyone knows that televised football is a complement to football on the field; The music heard on the record player is compatible with the energy of the concert. There are days when I want to watch movies at home, and there are days when I want to watch them in the cinema. They are different energies. It seems like a very easy thing to understand to me.