At the beginning of 2015, during the final sprint of the Goya Awards, a ceremony in which The minimum island He won ten trophies, its director, Alberto Rodríguez (Sevilla, 54 years old), spent many days in Madrid. He did all the promotion and campaign they sent him, but those who know him indicated that his head was in Seville, attentive to his children and his possible barrabasas. The anecdote exemplifies the care of the filmmaker for its people and its team, which has remained faithful film after movie, series after series. And that professional development has exploded at this San Sebastián Festival, where he presented Saturday at the competition the film The tigers And next Friday the series premieres Anatomy of an instant. He is the first director who faces double size in the Zinemaldia (he was also the first series scheduled in the contest, To the fish), Highlighting Rodríguez’s talent once again. He, shy, just points out: “I go, as always, delighted from life to San Sebastián. I particularly believe that we are going with a good movie and a very interesting series. That is what I’m going to try to enjoy.”
However, it is not one of the most popular filmmakers, despite its impeccable career and having up to three Goya awards in your hand: two for the scripts of The minimum island y The man of the thousand faces, and another by the direction of The minimum island. It may be for staying in Seville or for its creative coherence, which takes you away from more colorful adventures. In return, he has the respect of the entire industry and the press and affection of his team, who never says anything bad about Rodriguez.
His appearance in Zinemaldia with two works so different, that they came to overlapping for the dates in which the Congress of Deputies allowed the team to record its recreation of the 23-F coup, also confirms that Spain is explained through Rodriguez’s work. Yes in The tigers The narrative engine is the relationship between two Buzos brothers (Bárbara Lennie and Antonio de la Torre, the title refers to the family nickname) that they do not lift the head either economically or emotionally, and those who a coca stash can save their lives or burst it; in Anatomy of an instant The homonymous novel by Javier Cercas adapts, which dissects the 23-F and deaches those who lived that moment. Rodríguez begins with the length, born of what he saw as a child when he went on vacation to Mazagón (Huelva). “Even now, when I still go in summer, Petrochemistry fascinates me. Sometimes I have almost had an accident because I stay hooked looking. I thought there was a story, I asked, they let us visit it and there I learned about the divers.” Rodríguez refers to the discharges of giant oil tankers are carried out on the high seas, and the problems and faults are faced there, by specialized divers. “We talked to some of them and we found it so amazing that we started writing the text.”
By “us” refers to his creative partner, the screenwriter and now director Rafael Cobos. The Sevillian also collaborates with Rodríguez since his third film, 7 virgins (2005). “Alberto is two years older than me. I was 29 years old when we met in a mythical bar in Seville, La Sirena, where a common friend presented us because he knew we would fit. I came from doing a project similar to the project that he wanted to develop, and we leave all night speaking,” recalls Cobos, who has locked with other directors, although he always returns to Rodriguez. “Over the years, as director, Alberto has lost modesty. Before he had many reluctance when he entered the emotional side of the characters, and has already discovered that he favors them and benefits them upside down, which is the evil in favor of emotion because I think it is more favor of his way of having the cinema. And every person? As a person I believe that as we are all becoming old, we are forgiving ourselves, accepting. That trip is important.
In The tigers, Cobos and Rodríguez built very quickly the character of the older brother, for whom they did not eat their heads: they called him Antonio because it would be for Antonio de la Torre. According to Rodríguez, “he is a character who does everything is the other way around. And everything is wrong. That seemed very attractive. And we compensate for the balance with someone who was seeing so clear that he was making mistakes and that he still loved him, a sister, Barbara Lennie.”
From the tower he jokes with what image his two friends have of him if they write such a disastrous character in life. Malaga mudadado to Seville, became part of the Rodríguez clan with a failure. “I did a test with Juanjo Ballesta to make his brother in 7 virgins, And Rafa and Alberto told me that they were looking for something else … but that they stayed with my registration. I went a climb, I lived with it a healing process, it was worth it. “They remembered. And they called him to Group 7, and for The minimum island, And they have written this diver for him. “Alberto has always been demanding and obsessive, but in good ways. He remains the same with his essays with the script, with his constant ‘less is more’. Although I think where he was very much cane, now there is some calm. He does the same, but more relaxed,” he explains.
In the Rodríguez Clan there are more repeaters: the director of photography Álex Catalán (now, by dates, he has made the series; the film, with a spectacular and absorbent underwater photography, has fallen to Pau Esteve Birba), the composer Julio de la Rosa, the mount José Mg Moyano, various technical leaders … and Yolanda Serrano and Eva Leira, responsible for the distributions of all their work. Both underline that they love him. And then they explain: “It has matured. It is still incredible as it takes gold from anything you give, but has won in security. It trusts that it surrounds and listens and listens to it, although the proposal sounds like crazy. In that it is very brave.” And they point out a curiosity: “He is seen thinking. When you let go of a bomb, he starts thinking, the silence is made, the curls are touched, and meditates. He has a great intuition, so he successfully builds great stories of great risks.” How would they define him? “As a calm with forcefulness.”
The two directors of casting They point out a aforementioned idea: through the filmography of Alberto Rodríguez Spain is explained. The aforementioned laughs: “Ok, can. On previous occasions we have made films in which the social or political component was the central issue. Here, under the drama with touches of thriller This social portrait is more buried … although there is: the spaces that inhabit, the precarious job – brutal in the case of the divers, which for health retire much earlier and is a profession with many deaths -, the woman forced to be an eternal very subtle caregiver, and also supposedly subtle. All the elements, the spaces that she is occupying, which have to do over time and spend time to another. ”
Of course, in Anatomy of an instant There is no possible dribble: it is the history of Spain. Finished the film, many team members ran to the series because Congress only let them roll in the record of sessions last January. We had to close the cast to the race. Only a friend made the trip upside down. Rodríguez had called Raúl Arévalo so that his voice was the omniscient pseudocercas narrator who contributes all his sharpness and underlines the contradictions of what is seen, the clashes between official and true history. And of addition, he made a father (only with his voice) in the homemade recordings that the Buzos brothers keep from their childhood. Arévalo had already worked with members of this clan when he put himself before his cameras in The minimum island, And it is clear about what Rodriguez has changed: “It is safer. In return, he has not lost that passion for fighting for every thing and every detail. Notice, when I recorded the voice of the series, Rafael and he discussed the phrases until verbal times, because even those nuances are important. Alberto keeps the desire, which are usually lost with age.” For him, “that obsessive and meticulous thing is very beautiful to see; as if you watch a carpenter working the wood.” Therefore, “Alberto is the best thing that can be: a craftsman.”
That is why Rodríguez, in the interview, remembers every phrase of Anatomy of an instant, like the one that affects in a painful way “the gratitude of Spain” with some of the prebostes of the transition. “The book of Cercas fascinated me by how I created a fiction with history with capital letters. That is why I accepted the order, because I saw clear the hypnotic power of the three traitors (Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, Adolfo Suárez and Santiago Carrillo) and that Rafael Cobos and Fran Araújo would know how to put it in the scripts of the episodes.”
The review of her team ends with the production director (Goya winner in this category with Model 77) And now Manuela Ocón producer: not only is he an artistic part of that clan, but is his wife and mother of his two children. “With the confidence he has won in himself, I think he is now happier. He has always been solid, I now see 7 virgins And it seems like a movie. I agree with Yolanda and Eva what he thinks, what he listens and dialogues. ”There was a time when the couple, a long time ago, was considered moving to Madrid. They did not.“ It was risky, because we feared staying out of the industry. For family life it has been very good, and for work … not wanting to participate in a certain noise has helped in creativity. ”
The tigers It opens in Salas on October 31; Anatomy of an instant, That has ended just for its projection in the Zinemaldia, it will be seen in Movistar Plus+ throughout the fall. Rodríguez explains that the road has been strenuous: “I did not want to know where my limit was and that of the team. But by accident, for how we had to fit the calendars, we had to overlap both stories. Now it touches, rather than rest, enjoy.”