21/11/2017 - Marc Recha presents his latest film, La vida lliure, and reveals some of his keys to interpretation

(© Natalia Casado/Ficx)

La vida lliure [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marc Recha
film profile] was shot on the island of Menorca, with Sergi López and two novice child actors in the main roles. The director, Marc Recha, presented the film for the first time last weekend at the 55^th Gijón International Film Festival, in front of an audience at Teatro Jovellanos, where we talked with him.

Cineuropa: Has the film already secured distribution?
Marc Recha: Yes, Splendor Films will be distributing it in Spain. It could potentially be released in January next year; however, this type of film has a long life span, it could potentially accompany presentations all over the world for years to come... and I like that. Sometimes what we need is not just an opinion on something, but also an opportunity to relax a little and you realise that, as the years pass, this film just gets better and better. There are some projects that, perhaps because of their origin, have something that makes them long-lasting.

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This new film is linked to your previous release, A Perfect Day to Fly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], in its focus on the imagination of children.
The world that we imagine and dream about fascinates me, it’s a way of escaping from reality and living in a parallel world. It's been that way my whole life. When I was eight, I started filming in Super 8 and lived in another world: this is reflected, perhaps voluntarily, in my childhood characters. Tina's journey, the protagonist, is a journey of learning and discovery, of personal learning, from infancy to the adult world. It’s a very interesting challenge to create an atmosphere and situations subtly on films, not explaining too much, working more on non-verbal language, looks and sounds. Above all, it’s something that happens to us adults too: if we like a landscape, it's a pleasure to walk in a forest. When you do, you feel good, and psychologists would recommend doing so any day over taking a load of drugs. In the scene with the book that the children are reading we used one of my grandfather's books from my childhood that had a lasting impression on me.

It also has an air of an adventure film about it...
There are several readings in the movie, but I was reminded of travel and adventure books while writing it, such as Treasure Island or Josep Pla and his free life in the Ampurdán. It is a kaleidoscope of all the things that fascinated me, painting, music and literature, which all come back to an attraction to unexplored worlds and the contradictory relationships of humans with nature. Landscapes are conditioned by man but nature is not, because it's free and sometimes dangerous. In Menorca, the Tramontane wind is particularly impressive. In the past, storms were very powerful because there were none of the current protection measures in place, and so death was very present.

Again Sergi López is the main character...
I really like his character, Rom: I immediately thought of Sergi to play the part of Rom, with that physical presence and ambiguous look that makes him captivating and, at the same time, disturbing. The film has been edited a lot, but I have some shots of him that are very quixotic, where he goes crazy with the wind. In the end we left them out, but we could have shown shots of Rom going crazy. It's the compulsive way I make films. I film a lot of material and make maybe ten different edits, but doing so allows me to open the door to many different routes and debates in the final editing phase, and I like to hear the team's opinions. Sometimes, when assembling, I'll be missing the reverse shot because the weather changed and it started to rain, but we have to overcome every obstacle. Thanks to various setbacks the film has taken a different direction and is more interesting as a result. I keep thinking "don't do what you want to do, but what you can do, and let yourself do it." Furthermore, the beauty of the landscape has a point of imperfection which must be shown in the film: you can't always do things the way you want to because in the end it definitely won’t work out. Just think... how many paintings, cathedrals and wines were born that way? Creation has that intangibility and unpredictability, a bit of humanity and contradiction that makes films all the more authentic.

(Translated from Spanish)