Carolina Bang: "The producers are the scaffolding of the work"

Carolina Bang (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 37 years old) is an actress, but she does not practice.

She is also a producer, and that is why she works at Pokeepsie Films, the company she leads with her husband, Álex de la Iglesia, whom she met in 2008 for the

Not only do the filmmaker's films and series come from there from Bilbao, but also films by Eduardo Casanova, Ignacio Tatay, Zoe Berriatúa or Manuel Bartual.

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Carolina Bang: "Making a movie is worse than giving birth"

Ask.

What of Norway does she have left through her veins [her real last names are Herrera Bang, and she is Scandinavian on her mother's side]?

Response.

Very little.

My maternal grandfather was Norwegian and his wife, my grandmother, German.

But I like to say it, I like that it is there and I have the trip to Norway pending.

I am a Canarian by birth, although I came to Madrid at the age of six.

There is a lot of affection in my heart for Tenerife, because I go there a lot, I have friends left and I have a great time on the island.

Q.

And how much of an actress is left?

R.

Well, I haven't felt like it again.

I even have a representative.

However, that call that I felt when I was young, when I needed to act [she was nominated for a Goya for Best New Actress with

now the production provokes me.

I've changed course and I feel like I'm good at it.

Q.

De la Iglesia's office is like half a basketball court full of what fans of horror, fantasy or comics would like to collect;

his stands out for its sobriety and for being much smaller.

Of course, wedged in a corner, on top of a pedestal and behind him, there is a life-size Hulk furious and crashing into the ceiling.

That Hulk, isn't that Alex watching him?

R.

Noooo, Álex is not as fierce as they paint him.

Q.

Do you have fun being the boss of all this?

R.

Yes, although more than the boss, the producers are the scaffolding of the work, a fundamental role in the shadows.

The work is precious and involves you in the whole process: from the moment you choose the cast until the product reaches theaters or platforms.

You've given birth to it, that's why you don't need spotlights —I at least don't miss it— to highlight your work.

Of course, in Spain I think we should vindicate our figure much more.

“As a producer, have I ever had to hear that 'Aren't you the funny one that you act?'

Q.

And entering into this claim, there is also the role of women producers.

R.

Well, right now we are many, and in this sector the increase has been noticed.

There are other audiovisual professions where there is a greater male/female imbalance.

I try to focus my life on the positive, so I think we're doing well.

Of course, more is always needed to achieve parity.

This year, after the big movies, almost all of them have a woman in their production.

We achieve the same quality with much less money.

I don't want to fall into the cliché that we are more orderly or reliable... But there is a determining element: we put a lot of passion into what we do, because it is more difficult for us to reach the goal.

We have tighter budgets, we cannot afford unconsciousness.

Q.

How many projects do you receive led by female directors?

A.

Well, very few.

In these months it is true that they have increased.

In the last Sitges festival the increase was noted.

There are also few filmmakers who accept commissions, a policy that we must change.

Hopefully we all accept this industrialization process.

There are still so few female directors, who are in the fight to vindicate the gap, in which they can tell our stories.

The time will come, and it will be the next step, in which the industry will have female directors who accept external projects.

Carolina Bang, outside her production company Pokeepsie, in Madrid.Samuel Sánchez

Q.

Who's in charge here?

R.

All decisions are agreed between both.

We both read the scripts, and we tend to have Álex then supervise the artistic part and I the financial part.

If there is a script that one of us liked, we share it by reading it aloud... Actually, Álex reads it aloud because of his prodigious voice.

We usually quite agree, and sometimes we do disagree when I understand that it is too big a story, too expensive, for the industry in which we work.

More projects fall on that side than because there are creative differences.

Actually, 90% of the problems in a production arise from a lack of money.

With Álex, each euro appears triple on the screen.

We producers put a lot of passion into what we do, because it is more difficult for us to reach the goal.

We have tighter budgets, we cannot afford unconsciousness”

Q.

You have said that it has cost you more to give birth to movies than to your two daughters.

R.

Of course, it is that it is longer, a production lasts longer than a pregnancy.

And on three occasions I have dropped two projects within days of starting to shoot, and it's super frustrating.

Although the moments of happiness win, such as managing to carry out the

in which I learned a lot.

Q.

Have you ever met disdainful glances at your work?

R.

Yes, for being a woman, for youth, for being an actress turned producer.

I've ever heard that “Aren't you the funny one that you act?”.

That is a Spanish ballast, because in Hollywood it is common for actors to produce.

Here it is normal for them to direct, the last one is Mario Casas;

however, the production sounds weirder.

Now, in Pokeepsie, we're linking one shoot after another.

Today we are filming the film by Eva Hache

based on the Moderna de pueblo comics], and I don't have time to go to the shooting, with what I like... Here I am, making Excel sheets.

I don't feel like directing.

With one at home, okay.

I have not even started to write before a blank page”

Q.

Don't you feel like directing?

R.

No, with one at home, okay.

I have not even started to write before a blank page.

P.

They almost only do terror.

R.

It is what amuses us.

And because he travels very well all over the world.

A scare makes you jump here and in China.

However, we like more genres, such as comedy [

by De la Iglesia, has just premiered]: we are doing now with the series

or very personal, like the films of Eduardo Casanova.

Here we build five or six projects a year... which is already it, huh?

Q.

And in the future, what?

R.

Well look, something childish, something my daughters can see.

That's what I'm working on, something for tweens.

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