Fernando Trueba was always clear about it: when he directed his first feature film it would be called ‘Opera Prima’, and it would be the story of a boy who meets his cousin in Madrid’s Plaza de la Ópera.
Fernando Rodríguez Trueba, known as Fernando Trueba was born in Madrid on January 18, 1955. He is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer. Member of a very large family made up of eight siblings, the youngest of whom is also the director, writer and screenwriter David Trueba.
Fernando began his studies at the Faculty of Information Sciences in Madrid to later work as a film critic in different publications, including the newspaper El País and directed the film magazine ‘Casablanca’. He debuted as a director with different short films that he made with his former college classmates as actors, Óscar Ladoire, Antonio Resines, or with today’s film critic Carlos Boyero, where he created with his college friends the so-called ‘Yucatán School’, a name that was born of the cafeteria that existed in Madrid’s Glorieta de Bilbao, where they met every morning making fools at the faculty.
Fernando began shooting short films using his friends as actors or technicians. They were ‘In legitimate defense’, ‘Homage to three’, ‘The lion in love’ and ‘Carlos 82’. And in 1980 he found the opportunity to direct a feature film, with almost no money, but with a very funny script, which he titled, as promised, ‘Opera Prima’, which he wrote together with Óscar Ladoire.
As in his shorts, he calls on his friends and college classmates, Oscar Ladoire and Antonio Rasines as protagonists, who thus make their debut in the feature film and become actors (Resines was actually going to be a producer, but he would no longer give up acting). He also gives his first break on camera to Paula Molina (‘Angela Molina’s younger sister). The cast is completed with Kiti Manver, Marisa Paredes or El Gran Wyoming.
Built from winks as recognizable as they were predictable, ‘Opera Prima’ openly paid homage to the most varied filmmakers. The film, which was shot in just four weeks in Madrid in December 1979, followed Matías (Oscar Ladoire), a young 25-year-old journalist, divorced and with a young son, who walks his bitterness around Madrid until he falls in love. of his cousin Violeta (Paula Molina), 18, a girl passionate about the violin who studies at the Teatro Real conservatory, with a hippie style, whom he has met at the exit of the metro in the Plaza de la Ópera. Although she does not want to believe it and despite the advice of her friend León (Antonio Resines), she is the woman of her life, so she quickly settles in her house. When she makes friends with a peculiar musician, Nicky (Luis González Regueral), a classmate from the conservatory with whom she wants to go to Machu Pichu, Matías is eaten up by jealousy and his relationship with Violeta ends up falling, while she gets closer to the musician. and Matías, with his overwhelming sarcasm, goes from doing all kinds of bitches to being completely alone.
The film opens at the Cine Paz in Madrid on April 2, 1980, to fill a programming gap, the necessary quota of Spanish cinema to be able to release an American blockbuster afterward, and for only two weeks. During the first week the film is an absolute failure. Released as “a love film where you never say I love you”, Trueba himself goes to the cinema every afternoon and checks that no one enters, if perhaps some curious clueless. But in what was to be his second and last week on the bill, a miracle occurs and the cinema begins to fill up with people. The viewers have a great time and begin to recommend the film, which lasts on the Paz screen for several months.
Ópera prima’, along with the comedies by Fernando Colomo, gave way to what was called the “new Madrid comedy”. Shot with direct sound, something unusual in Spanish cinema until then, it reaches a tone of spontaneity and was a breath of fresh air in Spanish cinema. The film travels in September to the Venice Festival, where it is recognized with the Agis Award, and later to the Chicago Festival where it wins the Hugo de Oro, its highest award.
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