The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Things are not like that. That's not how it is

2021-06-12T11:24:11.912Z


The director of 'Lamentable Stories', which premiered on Prime Video six months ago, reflects on how difficult it has been to fulfill his promise to bring his film now to theaters


"Things are not like that. That's not how it is". This is the phrase that defines Bermejo, one of the protagonists of

Lamentable Stories,

who believes, at face value, that things, as they are better, is how they have been all the holy life. I love giving life to characters who, as in this case, have their thoughts in the antipodes of mine. What I like most about what has been written about

Lamentable Stories

is that it is a comedy that is as “unpredictable as it is impossible to classify”. I like it because it leads me to think that, once again, we have made it difficult for the movie classifiers and that what we have done does not look too much like what others offer. I have also read that, in

Sad Stories,

"The viewer has a hard time while he does not stop laughing out loud."

And this also causes me a huge aftertaste because I have the illusion that, in addition to making people laugh, the film manages to touch the hearts of the audience.

More information

  • Javier Fesser returns to his Spain puzzled with 'Lamentable stories'

  • The most striking absences of the Goya Awards

In any case, these insights confirm the idea that the Pendeltons [the author's producer], for better or for worse, have invented our own path and that we have never got on the train of pre-established norms. Nothing motivates us more than hearing the phrase “this can't be done” or the classic “things have to be done like this because that's how they've been done all our lives”. We do not even repeat in any film the schemes or protocols that we have designed ourselves for previous productions, no matter how well they have worked for us.

And it is not so as not to get bored, but also because we are aware that filmmakers portray and document a world that is alive, constantly evolving, changing tastes, habits and ways of thinking at a speed that is closer and closer to the of the light. Twenty-three years after our debut in feature films with

El milagro de P. Tinto,

the panorama has changed, a lot. Here and in the whole world. Movies are made differently, but most of all, they are enjoyed differently, in other places and at other times.

Regrettable stories

it was written, framed, performed and voiced for your enjoyment on the big screen. That's how it is. As many know, its premiere was scheduled for April 30 of last year and its debut was to have taken place at the Malaga festival. The confinement took away that premiere and a whole promotional campaign that the producers, enthusiastic, had already launched. The new dates that helped us to shuffle the harsh reality jumped to the following year. And, apart from the fact that we were “premiering on top”, noticing that the film was at the time, asking to be released, I have to confess, in all honesty, that leaving it in the drawer for a year was a decision that we could not financially nor consider. If only.We had enough to continue paying until 2025 the debt that our film generated in 2008

Road.

The one that we are so proud of and that most exhibitors, who love cinema above all, withdrew from its billboard a few days after its premiere because with it they did not fill their theaters enough.


I have to confess that leaving the film in the drawer for a year was a decision that financially we could not even consider

In that difficult circumstance, in which of course we were not the only ones, Amazon Prime Video, one of our original partners, who had already entered production to secure the broadcast rights of the film on its payment platform after passing through cinemas, they gave us the opportunity to turn the tables, to do things as they had never been done before.

The

tagline

The subject could not be more promising: invent something new.

What most attracted us about the plan with Amazon is that everyone around us warned us of the serious risks of such insolent madness: to premiere in November on its platform for its subscribers around the world and, six months later, to jump into theaters. of cinema and offer it to the general public and on the big screen.

In other words, invert the windows, subvert the established order, turn everything upside down, touch the balls, change things that are as they are because that is how it has always been.

"Crazy, that can't work, you're going to bump into it," that was the general opinion.

Six months later

At Films Pendelton and at Morena Films, we saw in this proposal, however, a magnificent opportunity to explore a new avenue of commercialization, to pave the way at this difficult yet exciting time. A decisive moment in which we think that everything can improve and in which we will all have a place. Try a new formula for everyone instead of standing around waiting to see where the wind blows. Work to demonstrate that platforms and rooms can not only coexist, but can complement, enhance, make each other great, exploring new scenarios instead of trying to recover at all costs what worked in the past, although hardly It will reproduce again no matter how much we ask the baby Jesus in our prayers.

Now, that the moment has come where they agree to put a sign of "Six months later ..." I have to admit that putting

Regrettable Stories

on the billboard has not been exactly easy. But we have succeeded and it makes us very happy to be able to keep our word to offer the film in cinemas, in a dark room, with the only light that magically bounces off the screen and that will envelop the audience in our madness, music, emotions and shocks. And we keep our promise thanks to those who have understood that their business will evolve, grow and improve from collaboration and the search for new scenarios and for that we are enormously grateful. Because the distributors and exhibitors that do not get off of nostalgia, and that sadly have closed in band to project

Regrettable stories, they

are thus admitting that watching a movie in the armchair at home is equivalent to seeing it in one of their cinemas.

And they are in error because a movie, that device that provokes laughter and shared emotions, as in a living room, will never be seen anywhere.

Long live the cinema!

Javier Fesser

is the director and scriptwriter of

Lamentable Stories,

which opens on June 11 in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Alicante, Granada and Alcira at the Kinépolis cinemas;

in Barcelona at Full cinemas and in Zaragoza at Palafox cinemas.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2021-06-12

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.