26/10/2023 - The American-based Spanish filmmaker talks about his co-production between his home country and Romania, which adapts the novel of the same name by Juan José Millás

(© Seminci)

Something Is About to Happen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Méndez Esparza
film profile] brings to the screen the novel of the same name by Juan José Millás, directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza (Here and There: Aquí y allá [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Hernández
film profile], Life and Nothing More [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Méndez Esparza
film profile]), working with Clara Roquet (Libertad [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Clara Roquet
film profile]) to write the script for this Spanish-Romanian co-production which was presented at the 68th Seminci - Valladolid International Film Week.

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Cineuropa: This is a film of an undefined genre starring Malena Alterio, an actress with ties to comedy. Does this have to do with Millás' universe or is it due to the screenwriters?
Antonio Méndez Esparza: We started with the novel, but the screenwriters asked ourselves what the essence of the story was. The original is quite dreamlike and fantasy, we’ve included this aspect into the inner universe of Malena's character and it’s not as literal as in the book. We wanted the film to have genre twists, as part of the story that had to be handled, as it demanded such twists. In deciding to adapt this novel, we had to commit ourselves to this story, which is hard to classify, because it could be similar to a horror film and at the same time comic, genre or realistic. They were elements that we put together.

Why choose Clara Roquet to co-write the script? What does the director of Libertad have that others don't?
When I spoke to her she hadn’t yet finished her film, but I had worked with Carlos Marqués-Marcet and Jaime Rosales, and as I consider myself a limited scriptwriter and the adaptation was beyond me, I needed a travelling companion. And I've always loved the idea of some Argentinean or Asian filmmakers, who write between two or three, a very rich combination that until now hadn't emerged because my previous films were collaborations with actors and with long shooting processes, so I've always understood writing as an exchange. But here I found a writer who gives a nuance to all the characters that I didn't find and with a rich structural mastery.

In your previous films there was hardly any music, but in your new film it is fundamental.
In the novel, Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot has a singular force and the music is a major character in the film, completing it. Without it, the film would not have so many layers. That is why it’s key for me.

Among other issues, Something Is About to Happen addresses why we construct fictions. To deal with her conflicts, the main character Lucía "makes up a story".
Yes, there’s an ability to imagine: we all have daydreams and digressions, we make up stories. Cinema is a masterful vehicle for exploring dreams and aspirations, those inner worlds that are very much our own and we don't share, but the screen gives us an opportunity to do so. My previous films were very realistic, but this one is more psychological, closer to a dream.

It also talks about feeding off reality, which you do in your work. Do you take your own film as self-criticism?
Sure! It is one of the elements of the novel that made me feel most uneasy and which I really identify with. This is a question I reflect on. I don't have the answer, but I have to accept it.

The film is the portrait of a survivor who reinvents herself and also the chronicle of an unannounced meanness, with the surprise of its final twist.
Yes, it’s almost a betrayal and I love the word meanness, which isn’t used much in everyday life. Talking to Clara Roquet, we wanted Lucía to initially blossom and then experience that tremendous final twist.

You’ve returned to Spain with this project. Will you stay here, do you have plans in Europe or will you just go with the flow?
I live in the United States and I have a couple of projects on the go, but they are in very early development, nothing immediate. And this shoot in Spain was the biggest and most professional I've ever done, with bigger crews, but it was very easy.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)