On 16 November last year (after a postponement caused by the health crisis, as it had been scheduled for spring 2020), the shoot for El corazón de Europa (lit. “The Heart of Europe”), feature number ten for Vigo-born director Juan Pinzás (Wedding Day), began in and around Madrid. This feature follows in the same free-spirited, independent, dreamlike, experimental and highly personal footsteps as his previous works – in particular, the other movie that (so far) forms part of his intended European trilogy: El vientre de Europa (2017).

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Filming will now carry on in other locations, while respecting the health-and-safety measures that are compulsory owing to the pandemic. “Now all that’s left to do is to film a few scenes in Galicia and in a European capital or two in April. Today, I feel a strange sense of nostalgia. It’s been a very special shoot, an intense experience. It’s a small-scale production with a tiny crew, but we’ve had no creative limitations, despite all the setbacks. We have incorporated COVID-19 and Storm Filomena as dramatic elements in the film itself,” he remarked on 1 February as he wrapped principal photography in the Spanish capital. In addition, Pinzás asserted on social networks, “The shoot for this highly sensorial film has been like therapy for me, helping me to rid myself of all the stress that has built up during this long pandemic period.”

The feature boasts a cast that includes German actresses Elke Krüger (wearing the Silver Mask) and Katherine Sorel (who breathes life into two different characters), Spaniard María Villar and the director himself, playing one of the lead roles, Julián Pintos, a character that previously appeared in the other instalment of this intended trilogy (as well as in New York Shadows), a saga that gives precedence to the landscape of the European continent and the female universe, as well as various oneiric, unpredictable and suggestive elements, over and above any commercial success or standardisation.

El corazón de Europa – with cinematography handled by Rudolf Koch and a screenplay written by Pinzás himself, who is keeping the plot under wraps in order to heighten the element of surprise in the finished movie – is being produced by Abstracto Films and is being made in conjunction with Atlántico Films. The executive producers are Pilar Sueiro and Angie Pereira, and Germany’s Friedrich Hofer is also involved. Its release is slated for the final quarter of 2021.