16/09/2022 - In his new comedy, the Spanish director uses an episodic structure to tell several unusual love stories

After its premiere as a Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival, Stories Not to Be Told [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cesc Gay
film profile] is now travelling to San Sebastián to get an airing as an RTVE Gala screening. The Spanish production helmed by Barcelona-based director Cesc Gay is an episodic film that tells stories of relationships, and more specifically their spectacular beginnings and endings. We talked to the filmmaker about his inspiration for the movie and the biggest challenges he experienced while making it.

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Cineuropa: Are these stories your stories?
Cesc Gay: It's not an autobiographical movie. I wanted to talk about relationships, and show how pathetic and ridiculous we can sometimes act when it comes to our emotions. I don't know exactly where the ideas for the stories came from. I guess I heard things around me, some through friends of mine. I can rarely tell where an idea comes from, as they are everywhere.

Did you plan to make an episodic film from the start?
When I have an idea and start to write, I never know what will come out of it – whether it will be a short story, a play or a film. At a certain point, I began to think about making a TV series with the material. I wrote ten episodes, but it wasn’t easy to finance it. So I turned it into a feature and chose five of the stories for it. It was difficult to choose the right ones, since they all had to have the same level of irony. It was important to find the right colour and tone, so I also had stories that were more romantic, for example.

What do you like the most about making comedies?
I have always enjoyed humour. But when I started my career, I realised how difficult it was to write comedies. I then wrote some plays for the theatre, and through this process, it also became easier to write scripts for films. I like the fact that you can recount important things through comedy. It's possible that at some point I’ll change direction, but at the moment, I really enjoy doing it.

Most of your films play out in the city. Does your inspiration come from the urban environment?
It's the bourgeois way of life that I am interested in – this need to be cool, to not show your feelings, to keep up the perfect relationship. I have always lived in the city and have seen that relationships differ depending on whether they unfold in the city or in rural spaces. Moreover, in villages, there is another kind of humour, a more aggressive one.

This is not the first time that you have mixed actors from Spain and Argentina. Where does the fascination for this contrast come from?
There’s a natural relationship between the two. I don’t differentiate between the actors. I like the fact that I am from Barcelona, but I can still work with an actor from Argentina. There are a lot of Argentinians who live here. I have a good relationship with Argentina; I know a lot about it and I love it.

Could you tell us more about how you chose your cast?
Some of the actors I know very well, and I like to keep working with them. Since you know what usually happens on set, you can trust each other. But there are also actors I hadn’t worked with yet, but whom I liked and was curious to try and work with. It’s difficult to find actors with a knack for comedy. Since we shot several episodes, it was easier for the cast, as they only had five to six days of shooting.

What were the biggest challenges in terms of producing the film?
The biggest challenge was not to forget the relationship between the episodes. I felt as if I had this big orchestra of musicians, and I had to be the conductor. I had to be aware of the common atmosphere and tone running through the episodes.

How is Spanish cinema doing right now, in your opinion?
I think Spanish cinema is doing very well. We have an eclectic film industry with some very different directors. There are a lot of platforms, and there is a lot of money. I am happy that my films are travelling to a lot of different festivals and markets, and remakes are being done, so it's a very good moment in that sense.