In 2001, a very young Paz Vega went to the Valladolid International Film Week for the screening of ‘Solo Mía’, Javier Balaguer’s debut film, in which the Alicante filmmaker signed a forceful plea against the mistreatment of women. For this reason, when this Saturday she came to present at the Valladolid festival – out of competition – her debut as a director, ‘Rita’, with the same background, but seen through the innocent gaze of a seven-year-old girl, she sensed that in some way it “closed a circle.” «’Only mine’ was the first film that openly talked about the subject. Since then I think something good has happened. Now as a society we already give it a name and recognize it, although much remains to change. She serves us relaxed at the Seminci ‘base’ hotel, a few meters from the Teatro Calderón. He just arrived from Chicago. She is tired, but happy. He has fulfilled a dream, that of directing his own work, for which he is also a screenwriter. “Raising” ‘Rita’ has been a “long” process, but she has enjoyed it because “it’s really what I’ve always liked.” «The idea had been haunting me since I first set foot on a set, the thing is that I didn’t have the tools, the knowledge, and the experience that the years have given me, but there was a moment when my head clicked and I thought I was ready to say something.”The actress, screenwriter and director, along with Sofía Apelluz, the little girl who plays ‘Rita’ EFEThus, she brought ‘Rita’ to life on paper, in which the director addresses “from a bright and beautiful place” a crude story that lives up to the protagonist, a seven-year-old girl played by Sofía Allepuz, who witnesses how her mother, played by Paz Vega herself, is the victim of a husband impregnated by machismo of those 80s, where society still viewed the approval of the Divorce Law with rejection. Native Seville It was the ‘double role’ of being in front of and behind the camera that cost the artist the most: «It was very exhausting, and sometimes even frustrating. Inevitably I had to judge myself and it’s complicated. “I won’t do it again,” he confesses, despite the fact that at the time of filming “I knew it was going to look good because I had really thought about what I wanted this character to be.” He also had very much thought about the tone he wanted to give to his work, for which he opted “for a more sensory, more emotional narrative” in order to “present the viewer with something that makes them automatically connect with their childhood.” He has also left something on the screen from his childhood. It has to do with his native Seville. «I have tried to be faithful to those images that I had as a child.» Asked how being a mother conditioned her when approaching the project, she points out: «I think that being a daughter has helped me more in making this film. I have nothing to do with Mary or her circumstances, but I do recognize my mother in certain things about the protagonist. In those that have to do with having no other option than to get married, be a housewife and have children. My film is also a tribute to those mothers who could not choose other lives, to that pivotal generation that was the first to say that they did not want this for their daughters, that there were more options. Related News 69 INTERNATIONAL FILM WEEK OF VALLADOLID standard No Marques-Marcet raises the curtain at the Seminci with a film in a musical key about “the condition of death and the unconditionality of love” Henar DíazAlthough filming with children is not an easy task, Sofía Allepuz, like the other two little ones in the film -Alejandro Escamilla, who plays Lolo, Rita’s brother, and Daniel Navarro, the neighbor’s son- did not make it difficult for them. Paz Vega was clear about what she was looking for in the protagonist: “Many things, but above all, a look in her eyes, a way of looking full of emotions.” «I found Rita perfect, but not only because of her incredible photogenicity, but because her gaze crossed the screen and she filled any silence with her eyes. Sofía has an incredible inner world and listening skills, she is very mature for how small she is. She has no plans to give up acting, but admits that “what she would be most excited about” at this moment is “to be able to dedicate myself to writing and direct with a continuity that allows me to live. In this era of brutal audiovisual production for all types of formats and platforms, the veteran actress and new director continues to see cinema as “an escape valve, a reflection in which to look at ourselves, learn, dream…”. «You see a movie and it excites you no matter which side you are on. “Art is the only thing that can save us because it is the only thing that can unite us.”
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