26/08/2024 - The Spanish director films a special remake of the classic The Hunt, this time starring actresses instead of men, including Carmen Machi, Rossy de Palma and Blanca Portillo

(l-r) Actress Rossy de Palma, executive producer Anna Saura, actress Zoé Arnao, director Pedro Aguilera, actress Carmen Machi, screenwriter Lola Mayo, actress Blanca Portillo and producer Jaime Gona on the set of Hunting Day (© Jorge Fuembuena)

Hunting Day, the new film by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Aguilera (selected in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight with La influencia [+see also:
trailer
film profile] y and in IFFR's Tiger Competition with Sister of Mine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Aguilera
film profile], whose last film Splendid Hotel [+see also:
film review
film profile] was released last year), was shot on location in Extremadura between July and August. This is his most ambitious (and commercial) project to date, starring three Spanish film stars including Carmen Machi (Goya winner for Spanish Affair [+see also:
trailer
film profile] who has worked in this region before during the filming of Piggy [+see also:
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interview: Carlota Pereda
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series profile] and this year in Paradis Paris [+see also:
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film profile]) and Blanca Portillo (Goya winner for Maixabel [+see also:
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interview: Icíar Bollaín
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interview: Pilar Palomero
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With a screenplay by Lola Mayo (The Dead Man and Being Happy [+see also:
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film profile], Andrea’s Love [+see also:
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interview: Manuel Martín Cuenca
film profile]) and Aguilera himself, Hunting Day takes place in the autumn of 2024. Blanca (Portillo), Rosa (de Palma) and Carmen (Machi) are three middle-aged friends who, after a long time without seeing each other, meet up with Diana (Zoé Arnao), Rosa's young and reserved niece, to go rabbit hunting on a property that Blanca inherited from her uncle. They share with laughter the hard times they are going through in their lives: their relationship with their children, separations, infidelities, menopause, problems with alcohol, important work projects.

The heat, unbearable, suffocating, and the conversations about the past become more and more heated until the women are pitted against each other. It is impossible not to remember that almost 60 years ago, another hunting day on this very estate ended in tragedy: in the film The Hunt, by Carlos Saura, starring Ismael Merlo, Alfredo Mayo and Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, which won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1966 Berlin Film Festival.

“The Hunt is within Hunting Day, it is part of the feature film... and therefore the spirit of Saura is also present, as is the spirit of the period when it was made in contrast to our present,” the filmmaker told Cineuropa. “In that sense it is a political film, the context of the time permeates both films, confronts them and makes them complementary, mirrors and akin. A film family... in my version, which is actually a free adaptation of the original script, many things are different and many are very similar; Hunting Day has a different tone of black humour to the previous one. It is funny, irreverent, fresh... there is the spirit of Saura but I would also say that of Berlanga, Buñuel and even Paco Martínez Soria [laughs]... I think that, in part, the key theme of the film is Spain”, he concludes.

Hunting Day has been produced by Jaime Gona for the Spanish company Gonita Filmaccion with Día de caza AIE, with associated production by Stephane Sorlat and Thomas Pibarot for Mondex&cie (France) and executive production by Anna Saura. It includes the participation of RTVE, Movistar Plus+, funding from the ICAA and the Junta de Extremadura plus the support of Media and the Community of Madrid. It has also received a grant from Ibermedia, it took part in the first edition of the Film Academy's Residency programme and participated in Ventana CineMad 2021.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)