In project
‘Avid Pretensions’ will change its title in the adaptation to the big screen for ‘The Golden Apple’
He had been away from the big screen for 17 years, but Jaime Chávarri (Madrid, 1943) has decided to return to directing in a big way, adapting a novel by Fernando Aramburu, ‘Ávidas pretensions’, which in its film version will take the title of ‘La Golden Apple’.
The cast has not yet been revealed, which according to production company sources “will be spectacular”. It is worth remembering that since his debut with ‘School Trips’, Chávarri has been an essential director in the history of Spanish cinema, with films such as ‘El desencanto’, a documentary produced by Elías Querejeta about the family of the poet Leopoldo Panero, which does not leave to impact yet; ‘To an Unknown God’, the first film that seriously addressed the issue of homosexuality; ‘Bicycles are for summer’ from 1984, based on the play by Fernando Fernán Gómez, starring Amparo Soler Leal, Gabino Diego, Agustín González, Victoria Abril and Marisa Paredes. In 1989 he directed another of his greatest successes, the musical film ‘Las cosas del Quiero’, performed by Ángela Molina, Ángel de Andrés López and Manuel Bandera and which was inspired by the figure of the charismatic copla singer Miguel de Molina, who had to go into exile in Argentina, threatened with death by the Franco regime because of his homosexuality. In 1995 he directed a second part of ‘Las cosas del Quiero’ in a co-production with Argentina, shot between Madrid and Buenos Aires and which included Darío Grandinetti and Susú Pecoraro in the cast. He was also behind ‘Tattoo’, a series for RTVE, and the short film of the same title in which Almodóvar sings the famous Piquer song behind a bar. His last work to date was in 2005, with ‘Camarón’, a biopic about Camarón de la Isla with which Óscar Jaenada, playing the unforgettable artist, won a Goya.
‘Ávidas pretensions’, which Chávarri wants to shoot in different areas of Galicia, narrates how in a town, which Aramburu calls Morilla del Pinar, they celebrate their third poetic days in a secluded convent. It is a three-day meeting in which the authors will discuss aesthetics and present their works. In the book, Aramburu makes a scathing critique of the literary scene and its protagonists, where the miseries of the literary and publishing world come to light.
Fernando Aramburu’s first novel was ‘Fuegos con limon’, from 1996, which reflects the aspirations of young writers in San Sebastián in the 1970s; Possibly ‘Avid pretensions’ can be understood as the present of those same characters. But, above all, the enormous success of Aramburu ‘Patria’, which spent many months among the most widely read books and for which it won the National Narrative Award. The novel was turned into a television series by HBO showing a Guipúzcoa plunged into ETA terrorism and was one of the best and most viewed Spanish series of 2020.
The film, behind which are the production companies Pirueta Films, Caramel Films and Sygnatia, as well as RTVE and the Orense council, the province where the bulk of the film will be shot, scheduled for next April with a view to its being ready in September.