“I would like to make zombie movies and things like that, but I only know how to make love movies.” Cesc Gay has been behind the cameras for more than twenty years and has signed titles such as In the City, Ficció, A Gun in Each Hand and Truman.
Now she is filming another love film in a comedic tone although with a little bit of drama, My Friend Eva, which begins in Rome where the Eva of the title meets Álex, who falls in love with her. And that is already a first complication, because Eva is, in principle, happily married.
Nora Navas is Eva, Rodrigo de la Serna plays the unexpected Roman lover and Juan Diego Botto plays the husband in this production whose filming has taken place through the streets of Barcelona, ??has continued to a hotel in La Garriga and will move to the next days to the eternal city.
“The film goes through the things that we want to do and that we normally don’t do and focuses on the fine line between humor and truth,” Gay explains to La Vanguardia during a break in filming.
Navas has already gotten the hang of her character and says that “Eva is a discreet, dreamy, shy and reserved woman, who suddenly, after many years of marriage, wants to feel the game of love again.”
“Álex is a screenwriter and is working in Rome. After a chance meeting, he falls in love with Eva and his life changes from that moment on,” adds De la Serna, who felt “captivated by Gay’s script from the first moment, because it is very literary.”
My friend may be a love movie, but “it is above all a film about chance, because I believe a lot in chance and everything that happens to the protagonist is the result of providence, which we often forget.” because we believe that everything in life is controlled,” adds the director.
Gay’s new film covers a year and a half in Eva’s life and, like the director’s other titles, it is a very ensemble film through which the woman’s friends and family pass through. “The leading trio is joined by many other actors such as Mercedes Sampietro, Miki Esparbé, Àgata Roca, Fernanda Orazzi, Francesco Carril or Marian Álvarez.”
Viewers of My Friend Eva will be able to play, as in other Gay films, to discover in which locations in Barcelona the film was filmed. For now, the director’s camera has walked “through Gràcia, because I’m from there and I like to walk to work” and through Eixample.
The filmmaker is delighted, because he has already taken action and what he likes most is filming: “Writing is the most difficult part of my job and this time it has been even more complex because I wanted to draw a very powerful female character. I have written the script with Eduard Solà and I hope that people empathize with the protagonist and with the film”, concludes the director who is careful not to fall into spoilers.
