When Dani de la Torre reviewed the script for Live is Life, he doubted its direction. As one of the country’s leading authorities on action cinema and TV series, with credits like Unknown and The Unit, the director faced a bold challenge: reinvent the story as a coming-of-age journey. The screenplay, written by Albert Espinosa in the 1980s and drawn from his childhood memories, pivots the action from its original setting to Catalonia and Ribeira Sacra in Ourense, the places where de la Torre grew up and spent summers with his friends.
He explains that back then it felt electric to be alive while cruising through those landscapes on a bike with friends. Every ride carried a constant sense of adventure. There were no mobile phones to tether them, and suddenly obligations and routines faded away, leaving room for exploration and self-discovery, a sentiment he recalls during a visit to the film’s natural backdrop.
Ribeira Sacra provides a dramatic stage, its vineyards, dense woods, cascading waterfalls, and the vast horizon shaping the tale. In this setting, young protagonists Rodri, Álvaro, Maza, Suso, and Garriga embark on a quest to locate a magical flower believed to cure an illness that affects one of their own. Their journey takes them through the region’s cradle, past abandoned drug towns, to the moment they adopt a baby who becomes the group’s daughter, and into the early, raucous experiences of adulthood, including a string of pool-hopping adventures that push them toward their destiny.
The director notes a lifelong affection for children’s cinema, citing favorites from the 1980s like The Goonies and Count on Me. He emphasizes that there is a nostalgia woven into the film, yet it is not a manufactured nostalgia. He approached the project with genuine intent, refusing to imply that past times were superior. He points out that, in their youth, the cast could stay out all night camping away from home while their parents tolerated it, an era he sees as less encumbered by fear and more about freedom.
Months were spent auditioning local schools and football teams to capture a sense of freshness. The aim was to ensure the young performers did not appear world-weary on their first screen appearance. As filming nears completion, several cast members, including David Rodríguez as Suso and Javier Casellas as Garriga, who were present during a press visit, reveal a growing seriousness about acting and a desire to pursue professional careers.
Live is Life was shot during the summer of the pandemic, a time of widespread uncertainty and fear, yet also a moment when the need to breathe and reconnect felt especially poignant. For Dani de la Torre, the film represents a personal beacon, a project that settled peacefully in his heart and felt like family, a sentiment his late mother would have shared with pride. He describes the experience as one in which the project carried no violence or gunplay, offering a different kind of resonance for his own creative voice. [Attribution: interview with Dani de la Torre]