The grandchildren of filmmaker Luis García Berlanga, Fidel (left) and Jorge García Berlanga (center), and the president of the Film Academy, Mariano Barroso, at the opening of the Caja de las Letras. Victor Lerena / EFE
Open the box 1,034, there was the treasure of Luis García Berlanga. Three publications were waiting at the Cervantes Institute for the centenary of the filmmaker's birth this coming Saturday, June 12: two works about his work (a copy of the French magazine
L'Avant-scène
with the script for
The Executioner
and the book about the filmmaker by Antonio Gómez Rulfo,
Against Power and Glory)
and the script for
¡Viva Russia!
, which would have been the fourth part of the
National
saga
(The National Shotgun, National Heritage
and
National III).
That project was postponed with the death of Luis Escobar (who played the Marquis de Leguineche).
In those nineties, Andrés Vicente Gómez pre-produced the comedy, but was paralyzed by the death of its protagonist and the lack of public subsidy.
The plot illustrated the arrival of the Leguineche in Miami.
More information
Berlanga, the mirror of Spain
Berlanga, the genius of cinema misunderstood by the general foreign public for being "too Hispanic"
The box has been opened by his grandsons Fidel and Jorge García Berlanga.
Along with them, the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and the president of the Spanish Film Academy, Mariano Barroso.
The legacy deposited in the box has been transferred, accompanied by a Valencian music band, to the exhibition that the
Berlanguiano
Film Academy opened on Wednesday
.
Luis García Berlanga (1921-2021).
His grandson Jorge spoke, before discovering the secret, "of the duende" of his grandfather, nonconformist and free.
Barroso has read the first two sequences of
¡Viva Russia !,
which starts with Luis José (the character played by José Luis López Vázquez) and a plane. A group of elderly people carry a banner that reads "The last exiles salute the Spain of '92." One, more dead than alive, waves a Republican flag. In the cockpit of the plane Luis José is to read a lot of sadomasochistic magazines. And he looks disgusted ... The libretto is signed by Rafel Azcona, Berlanga, his son Jorge and Manuel Hidalgo. In the Cervantes, José Luis García Berlanga, son of the director, explained that the script was rewritten after the death of Escolar, but that it did not reach more.
The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero (right), together with Fidel García Berlanga, and the president of the Film Academy, Mariano Barroso, with the three books that Berlanga left in his box. Barroso holds the script for 'Long live Russia!' Víctor Lerena / EFE
On May 27, 2008, Luis García Berlanga (Valencia, June 12, 1921-Madrid, November 13, 2010) deposited in the security box number 1,034 of the old central bank vault, converted by the Cervantes Institute into the Caja de las Letras that same year, a sealed envelope whose content he decided would not be revealed until June 2021. Although García Berlanga did not want to publicize the content, in what was one of his last public appearances, his son Jorge Berlanga then speculated that it could be "a script, a memoir or a devastating message to humanity." In the end it was the script for
¡Viva Russia !.
The Valencian was the first filmmaker to leave a message in the Caja de las Letras.
