24/07/2023 - The Valencian filmmaker talks about her second feature film, a charming character portrait defending the work of farmers

(© Damir Vujković)

In her second feature-length documentary, Domingo Domingo [+see also:
interview: Laura García Andreu
film profile], filmmaker Laura García Andreu takes us to the orange groves of Valencia to introduce us to an eccentric and memorable character, while humorously defending the role of farmers in the food industry. Following its premiere in Thessaloniki, the film has been presented in the Eco Dox section of the 30th European Film Festival Palić. We spoke to the director about her connection with the subject and the renewed interest in rural cinema in Spain.

Cineuropa: What was the first contact you had with Domingo and at what point do you decide to make a film about him?
Laura García Andreu: Domingo is my partner's cousin. We had met at a few family meals, but we were not close. I was looking for stories for a new documentary, and I really wanted to do something with some humour. At one of these meals, Domingo kept talking about oranges with my father-in-law, and I found him to be very charismatic. We already knew that he had a hidden variety that he wanted to patent. Also, the subject of agriculture has always interested me because I grew up around it from a very young age. I’ve always felt that farmers have never had the value and social impact they deserve. That's when I decided I wanted to tell this story. We went out one afternoon to film a teaser and realised that it worked, so we started submitting it to labs.

Apart from your own personal interest, what did you know beforehand about the situation of these farmers? In particular, the issue of patents and inequalities in the sector.
I had some notions through what I’d heard in the village, because everyone there has groves and they talk about oranges all the time. The names of the varieties started to ring a bell, the pests, how the patents work and the coops, etc. There’s a lot of information that didn’t make it into the film because I didn't want to make an informative documentary. It was a bit tricky to find that balance, to decide how much information we had to include so that your average person would understand this whole world, what’s behind what we eat, but without losing the freshness of the characters and the more anthropological aspect.

The film mixes several genres, with comedy and thriller-like moments. Was there a lot of script work or did you just go with the flow?
A documentary is made during the whole process, even in the editing, because there’s a lot of material that you have to throw out. There were many things in the script, such as the plot of Domingo, which was very clear from the beginning, as well as the cheeky touch of the thriller mixed with comedy. On the other hand, there were things that came up as we went along, and other things that I wanted to include but due to circumstances were not.

When Domingo travels to the Berlin fair, we understand that the big industry decisions are out of his control.
In the town they always talk about these multinationals that control the patents, but they’ve never seen them. They refer to this monster, which is also metaphorically represented in the documentary, but they don't actually know it. That's why we thought it would be interesting to accompany Domingo to Berlin and see how he dealt with them, even if not directly. In the town there’s an impressive orange-growing context, but the most important decisions are taken in an office somewhere far away.

In recent years, several films have emerged with themes on the countryside and the situation of small farmers, such as Alcarràs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carla Simón
interview: Carla Simón
interview: Giovanni Pompili
film profile]. Why do you think this trend is occurring?
I find it interesting that it’s generally women who are delving into this. I believe that this trend of rural-focused films is to do with the fact that people from different socio-cultural backgrounds, who didn't have access to cinema before, can now tell their own stories. People with a family background related to the rural sector and whom we think it is very unfair that they’re not being discussed more, when in fact they are key sectors. If we allow everything we eat to be controlled by multinationals, the situation can become very dangerous. In the end, we all tell stories about what we are moved by.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)