Víctor Iriarte has begun this Saturday at the Lido the film career of Sobre todo de noche, his debut feature film, which competes in the Day of Authors, a parallel and independent competition of the Mostra. In it, the Basque director brings back one of the darkest episodes in recent Spanish history, that of stolen babies.
The film, co-written with Isa Campo -Isaki Lacuesta’s screenwriter- and Andrea Queralt, wanders between film noir, melodrama and thriller to narrate the painful journey of a mother in search of her son. An already adolescent son to whom he writes a letter. “They told me you were dead and to forget you.” The mother broken in pain is called Vera and has the face of Lola Dueñas. The adoptive one, that of an Ana Torrent who works as a piano teacher.
The film starts with a declaration of intent: it is presented as a story of violence, rage and struggle. “The origin arises from the desire to film an image of two women on the banks of the Duero River taking a siesta. And that image intersected with an interest in asking myself who we are and where we come from historically, and especially in the specific case of stolen babies, whose wound is open and with a feeling of abandonment because neither politics nor the institutions have yet known give an answer to this chapter”, explains Iriarte to La Vanguardia.
The director was creating the characters and asking them questions directly. Both the biological mother, full of rage and wanting revenge, and the adoptive one, who faces the situation with serenity. “Both have been through a lot of fear and a lot of pain. But when they meet, they listen to each other and care for each other and that is the key”. Dueñas and Torrent perform together for the first time and rave about each other.
The actress who became known in The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), by Víctor Erice, with whom she coincides again in Close Your Eyes, confesses her surprise to discover that this criminal practice that began during the Franco regime continued to spread well into the years 90. “Justice has not been done with the unspeakable pain that has caused many families.” The film reflects the difficulty for victims to access any type of information about their cases, “so they have to act almost like detectives to find out what has happened to their children,” says Dueñas.
Torrent came into her role as Cora “from a very simple and real place. She is a woman who has lived with the doubts of motherhood, but devoted to the happiness of her son. She is in pain but not anger. Dueñas, for her part, knew that she had to be in the project “because I read the first pages of the script and it was my voice.” She highlights the trade of her character, the stenotype, “because she uses her hands a lot and in a very specific way.” And she affirms that she has added “many personal things of mine” to it.
“What I love is how the two recognize each other and how each gives rise to the other. Cora is a very generous woman. And above all is the love for Egoz, the son”. After passing through Venice, Especially at Night will compete for the Golden Spike at the Seminci and will hit theaters on December 1.
