14/08/2025 - The Basque director talks about his psychedelic tale that sits halfway between comedy and terror

(© Locarno Film Festival/Ti-Press)

It has been 15 years since Ion de Sosa debuted with the documentary True Love. This time has helped him to become a leading reference in Spanish alternative cinema. This director, scriptwriter, director of photography and producer presents Balearic [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ion de Sosa
film profile] in the Filmmakers of the Present section of the Locarno Film Festival, a step up in an exciting career that keeps putting him front of a wider audience.

Cineuropa: You are a difficult filmmaker to classify, and your films are always unique and incomparable. How would you describe Balearic?
Ion de Sosa: I started writing Balearic in around 2019 and at that point it was an internal reflection on mid-life crisis. There comes a moment when you reflect on who you are, what you have dreamed of being, whether you are doing something useful and positive for the society in which you live... It came from a certain self-criticism, asking myself if I could continue to live, somehow, oblivious to everything that was going on around me. In short, it is about observing whether something universal can be drawn from individual circumstances.

The film focuses on a group of rich, unsympathetic and disconnected people. Your work is collective, with a combative point of view, made with colleagues you work with regularly. Does this contrast add power to the film's story?
I think so. I've been lucky enough to work with people like Héctor Arnau, from the group Las Víctimas Civiles, and if there's anyone combative it's him; María Llopis, who comes from the world of post-porn; Sofía Asencio, who creates very avant-garde performances; as well as Julián Genisson, Lorena Iglesias and Marta Bassols , who are more regular collaborators of mine. During shooting in Alicante, we also approached people who could be close by, and the result was an extraordinary group that I loved filming.

The film has a fanciful and colourful tone, the opposite of typical Spanish social cinema, but it addresses the issues marking current affairs in Spain and around the world. What can you tell me about this?
I wanted everything to have a fable-like tone, to avoid realistic naturalism and to give the film a fairy-tale aura. I was thinking a lot about Hansel and Gretel, the parallel between the young people who come across that luxurious house, and what happens in it: the candy house and the witch's oven. In essence, I looked at more traditionally Spanish films such as The Exterminating Angel, Mamá Turns 100, Trout, or more recent things like Triangle of Sadness [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile]. I liked the idea of portraying a group of people in their ivory tower, people who feel they have achieved everything in life and have an indolent and conservative attitude towards everything that happens elsewhere, as if it doesn't concern them. And the fire is a symbol of all the evils that plague us all, and that these people don't seem to care much about.

Your filmmaking is challenging and not an immediately easy fit for mainstream circuits, but you enjoy an increasingly solid position in the industry and the popularity of your work is growing. How do you see your position as a filmmaker?
I think I am on a journey of discovery of this medium. Since True Love, which was something more intimate and formal, I moved on to Androids Dream [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which involved more characters and more dramatic complexity. The best thing is that I can afford to keep learning, and I have found some fantastic partners along the way: Leire Apellániz, Miguel Molina, Marina Perales, Xavier Rocher. In a way, they help me to continue exploring this path of discovery of the medium without dropping the ambition of reaching larger and larger audiences. When I work, I feel at home, with no restrictions on creativity or form.

I would like to hear a bit about two very spectacular sequences in the film: the one with the dogs and the one in the helicopter. What was it like to film these?
For the dog sequence I worked with Andrés Albarracín, a coordinator of sequences with animals, who I met through the Film Academy residency programme. He and my assistant director, Óscar Santamaría, were the key to pulling off a sequence that involved a very complex technical and human device. It was also difficult to shoot the helicopter scene, as we only had it available for half a day. In both cases I learned that scenes like these require their own pace in filming. They need a dedication time that cannot be negotiated, and you have to give yourself over to it completely. I liked that a lot.

(Translated from Spanish)