“Now I have to think about what I’m going to do with my life.” Tomorrow, Friday, Marta Medina will officially cease to be a resident of the Film Academy. Together with the rest of her colleagues, a total of 10 men and 10 women, she has been part of the third class of this public initiative that emerged in 2019 and has the support of the Madrid City Council. Since then, 57 creators have passed through this aid program for the development of audiovisual projects, but these 20 will be the first to deal with the new Audiovisual Law approved by the Senate last Wednesday.
The rule introduces a controversial definition of independent producer, a change that professionals and industry associations have rejected for leaving non-majority films at a disadvantage. “The cultural heritage of a country also goes through the cinema and it is sad to see that it is increasingly unprotected,” explains Medina. “It worries me,” acknowledges Leire Albinarrate, another of the former residents, “because when you know that only one type of story is taking place, you can lose the desire to take risks.”
For his part, Daniel Tornero, fellow Documentary, emphasizes the importance of diversity -«the more heterogeneous an art is, the more it will grow»-, a quality that also defines them as a group, since the Residences host animation projects, fiction, non-fiction and television series. Tornero’s project is titled ‘Saturno’: «In 2018 my grandfather was arrested for child abuse and for the attempted kidnapping of an eight-year-old girl. Since then, I have tried to understand who she is ». It will be his first documentary.
–
Still from ‘Saturn’, by Daniel Tornero
–
—
For Medina, ‘Laponia’ is his second fiction script: «I imagine it as a costumbrista horror film about the emptied Spain. I grew up in Soria and in the treatment that I presented there was already the Castilian imaginary, the cereal fields and the literature of Machado». Nine months later, with workshops, consultancies and a lot of rewriting, this idea has evolved into the fantasy genre and demographic changes have become possible disappearances.
Albinarrate has also experienced his particular creative metamorphosis. He came in with a very preliminary proposal, just a few outlines, “and I come out with a written pilot and a very complete sales dossier.” In the final act of the course he presented his series proposal, ‘La mala vida en Madrid’, in front of a hundred production companies gathered by the Film Academy.
Training, meetings and coexistence
Throughout this course each resident has been accompanied by a filmmaker. Tornero has worked alongside the director José Luis Guerín (‘The Academy of the Muses’). “I often say that it has changed my life,” he says. “It helped me understand the kind of movie I wanted to make.” Albinarrate’s tutors have been the Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers, directors of series such as
‘The Zone’ and ‘Crematorium’. “Think that you are so immersed in a universe that perhaps you insist on something that you think is fascinating,” says this scriptwriter from Vitoria. “From the outside they can point out what really catches your project’s attention.” In the case of Medina, the filmmaker Manuel Martín Cuenca (‘The daughter’) has known how to give her tools without imposing her vision and that is that “he asks you questions that are very useful to refocus the idea.”
–
Actor directing workshop /
–
—
During this time they have also been able to learn from other professionals in the industry. The last one, Robert Cerdá, who has taught an actor direction workshop in which the interpreters Irene Escolar and Miki Esparbé have volunteered. Or former residents like Pilar Palomero and Ion de Sosa have returned to tell their experience. To follow the process closely, Tornero, a native of Alicante, has had to settle in the capital although he has continued to film with his grandfather. “There has been a total transformation, if something has made me grow in recent years it has been going through the program.”
Medina’s displacement has not been physical but optical: «I come from working in journalism where every day you tell something different, but with a project like this you commit to the long term and the curious thing is that you keep thinking about it. In each ‘pitch’ you have to tell the story and then you rethink it again». For Albinarrate, in addition, coexistence has also been enriching professionally and personally: «I came from the most mainstream television industry and here, with so many profiles, I have been able to learn from colleagues who make independent films. Projects change, but you also change.
–
