13/05/2024 - The filmmaker talks about the making of his latest film, winner at Malaga Film Festival, and his experience as a tutor at the second Conecta Lab

(© CREA)

At the second Conecta Lab, held on the Galician island of San Simón at the end of April, six projects were presented (read more). Two of these projects were tutored by Isaki Lacuesta, who enjoyed success at the last Malaga Film Festival with Saturn Return [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isaki Lacuesta
film profile], a film that comes to Spanish cinemas on 24 May, distributed by Bteam. He discusses both of these in this chat.

Cineuropa: Creation is the central theme of the Saturn Return.
Isaki Lacuesta: The film discusses teamwork, looking for what we have in common between cinema and music. But it can be extrapolated to other collective professions, where you have to decide whether your relationships are only professional or transcend, which is when cooler things happen. However, sometimes that involves flexibility and drawbacks. But yes, it’s a film about love, vampires and music.

There are two important names in the gestation of Saturn Return: Jonás Trueba and Pol Rodríguez.
The film started with Jonás and Fernando Navarro, a scriptwriter who lives in Granada and knows its music scene, and Cristóbal García as producer and fan of the group Los Planetas. But Jonás left the project because he had been with it for a long time and became disillusioned. He calls me in case I want to shoot it, because we had talked a lot during the process and he knew I liked it a lot. And when our daughter is diagnosed with leukaemia the day before we start the film, I think that the way to make the film is with Pol as co-director, because he knows the team and so we work remotely thanks to technology.

Granada appears in the film as a fascinating, somewhat phantasmagorical space, with its light and dark. What is this place for you?
It has always been important, as a foundational city, both itself and what it represents as a place of inspiration through the works of Federico García Lorca, José Val del Omar and above all Enrique Morente, Lagartija Nick and Los Planetas. Artists have been born and raised there and I try to take them as an example and an influence.

You’re very fond of the south of Spain...
It's very nice there! Sometimes ideas come from a desire to live in a place. I work a lot like that, from the desire to create portraits of people and places. I imagined myself living with musicians in Granada and I thought that sounded great.

You have recently been a tutor in Conecta Lab in the north of the country. What was this experience like?
I think they’re doing a great job, both in terms of organisation and the proposal, which is very good. The location is unbeatable and the hosts are fantastic. What I like most is discovering projects with new worlds that I don't know. That's what happened with Berio Molina and Patricia Echevarría.

Is there an exchange of energy and ideas between teacher and student? Do they open your mind to new areas?
Yes, totally, that's what I like about this experience. I was a teacher for a long time at university but I stopped years ago and this has been a return to that.

There are those who criticise laboratories because they can standardise narratives, while others say that they are very helpful to those who are starting out, with so many questions...
The danger of standardising is clear and tangible, and there are ideas in films that you can see have gone through labs. But the biggest advantage is that you have time to think and you build up a network of contacts there. For example, speaking as a producer of Foremost by Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Víctor Iriarte
film profile], by Víctor Iriarte, Valérie Delpierre (Inicia Films) appeared at a post-production workshop, was enthusiastic about the film and became a co-producer. There are possibilities for professional networking when the film is presented while it’s being made, finding partners along the way and that's super useful. And avoiding the danger of uniformity depends on both mentors and mentees, which is a minor problem. As always, in the end it’s up to you, as you have to distinguish between gifts and bombs.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)