An afternoon on the set of 'La Mesías', the most complex and unexpected story of 'los Javis'

Despite the cables, the spotlights and the hundreds of people who roll around it, the enormous farmhouse located in Santa Susanna (50 kilometers from Barcelona) in which

have been filming for the last few weeks exudes mystery.

And there is a lot of that in

, the first project as directors of Javier Ambrossi (Madrid, 38 years old) and Javier Calvo (Murcia, 31 years old) after the international success of

.

The series that Movistar Plus + will premiere in 2023 talks about "the passage of time and how childhood marks us forever", they explain themselves.

It is structured around the members of a large family whom the viewer will see evolve over the years.

It is the most complex story of his career.

It is very ambitious in characters, plots, themes, time lines, narrative jumps, genres and tonalities.

Also in terms of creative freedom and resources: a huge technical team will complete 22 weeks of filming in different locations in Catalonia, after more than two years of research on the issues dealt with in it.

A viral video hits the memory of Enric, one of the protagonists.

That recording takes him back to his childhood and youth, marked by religious fanaticism.

It is his memories that take the viewer to that farmhouse and to other places of the past and that make history travel from the Spain of the eighties and nineties, shot in 16 millimeters and full of textures and colors, to the present day, reflected in digital and with an unusually sanitized tone for directors.

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At the origin of this altarpiece full of relevant characters are two fundamental figures, one female and one male.

The woman, Montse, with messianic delusions, is the one who gives the series its name and "who deeply affects this entire family", comment its creators.

Next to her is Pep, "someone who is much more than he seems," says Ambrossi.

"One of those men for whom time does not pass... nor do emotions," Calvo completes.

Pep is played by an unrecognizable Albert Pla and one of the actresses who plays Montse is Lola Dueñas, who has already appeared in

.

The creators of

trust her to build a part of this woman.

“We have learned that you should never count on someone you do not admire.

When we have done it, because we thought she fit the character or on the recommendation of others, we have been wrong.

And we admire her.

She is her, of all the actresses I have worked with, the one I love the most and the one I understand the best with”, confesses Ambrossi.

Calvo highlights her "enormous dedication" to her characters: "she is infallible and will do whatever it takes to make the scene as good as possible," she says, on what is the actress's first day of work.

But

doesn't focus exclusively on religious fervour.

It shows, through the lives of its many characters, faith from different perspectives;

as a mysterious and redeeming element.

It is all those things in which one believes to cling to life and flee from pain, such as art or love.

“With this story, we ask ourselves what it means to believe, what ways there are to do it and what we believe in our day to day.

It is something that obsesses us, because what a person believes in is what defines them”, explains Calvo.

That fervor for the hidden and the unknown also defines the

of the time in which the part of the plot on which the team is currently working is set.

It portrays a country whose television "broadcast programs of abductees and disappeared", where "the route of the bakalao triumphed" in the darkness of the discos.

As its creators explain, “it was a place where there was a great variety of beliefs, perhaps because there was little information”.

A moment from the filming of 'The Messiah', in a farmhouse in Santa Susanna (Barcelona).Suma Content

A natural and customary tone

The Catalan farmhouse in which the team works immediately places whoever visits it in that Spain.

Behind each object that clutters his main room there is a past time or an intimate belief of someone real.

The art direction team has visited in recent months the nearby houses that were to be emptied to bring truth to the home of

.

The five girls who participate in this stage of the series [Iona Roig, Sara Martínez, Arlet Zafra, Joana Buch and Ninoska Linares] are also key to achieving that desired natural and traditional tone.

have let them paint the drawings that appear on the walls.

And they work with them without a script.

They prefer to rehearse the previous context so that they react spontaneously to the lines of text that the adult actors recite.

In one of the scenes they prepare during filming, Calvo

with them behind the camera.

Every time they improvise, Ambrossi celebrates in the next room, sitting in front of the monitor.

The Javis together with the five girls with whom they shoot part of 'The Messiah'. Suma Content

Carmen Machi, Cecilia Roth, Roger Casamajor and Macarena García are also part of the cast, at other moments in the plot, of this Movistar Plus+ original series in collaboration with Suma Content,

shot in various locations in Catalonia.

But there is so much mystery surrounding the

project , that it is even for themselves.

Although the end of the story is very well defined, of the seven chapters that make up

, only the first five have been written.

In this quest to express truth on screen, the team will take a break, Ambrossi and Calvo will review what was shot and, after analyzing the result, they will complete the scripts for the two final chapters to return to a second phase of filming, in early 2023 “For once, we don't want self-contained episodes.

We want the viewer to be left with many questions at the end of each one.

This series is nothing that people expect, ”Ambrossi advances.

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