Last week, filming started in Barcelona of Jokes & Cigarettes, directed by David Trueba (selected at Cannes in 2002 with Soldiers of Salamina, at Sundance in 2011 with Madrid, 1987 [+lire aussi :
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interview : David Trueba
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interview : David Trueba
fiche film]). The film is based on the early career of Eugenio, a unique man, a comic icon for an entire generation, who died in 2001 at the age of 59 and who starred in Un genio en apuros, a film by Lluís Josep Comerón (1983), as well as the documentary of the same name about him made by Jordi Rovira and Xavier Baig in 2018.

The plot features Eugenio (played by David Verdaguer, recently seen in the series Historias para no dormir [+lire aussi :
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interview : Jaime Rosales
fiche film] and who will soon appear in the series Las noches de Tefía) on a bus in Barcelona. They instantly fall in love and he learns to play the guitar to accompany her in her music career, for which he will have to fight stage fright. When Conchita has to go away for two weeks, she convinces Eugenio to perform by himself. When she returns, he has become a sensation in the city's underground comedy scene. Little by little, they will develop the character, who will become an unexpected success in a depressed Spain desperately in need of a laugh with this unique narrator who begins all his stories with the saying “Jokes & Cigarettes...” (Do you know the one...).

This feature film is written by Trueba from a screenplay by Albert Espinosa (Live Is Life) based on the books Eugenio and Saben aquell que diu, by Gerard Jofra, the comedian’s son. The cast is completed by Pedro Casablanc (whom we will see in Pedro Almodóvar’s Extraña forma de vida, to be presented at Cannes), Marina Salas (who previously worked with Yuste in El cover [+lire aussi :
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David Trueba says that "this is a film about humour. And about survival. Eugenio was one of the most popular comedians of the Transition. Everything about his appearance was at odds with humour: a serious man, with no gestures, hiding behind tinted glasses and a black shirt, with a lit cigarette behind a microphone, who would be the one to make a whole country laugh. But... what was hidden inside him?"

The producer Edmon Roch (Ikiru Films) says that, "I remember when I went to see the comedian who made people laugh before he’d even opened his mouth. I was ten years old and I could see my parents laughing their heads off at the sight of this tall man sitting on a stool, stretching out his every movement with an unperturbed gesture before he started to speak. There was a liturgy, an expectation, a palpable ritual. Later, when I discovered Buster Keaton, I thought of Eugenio's unflappable face, he’s still present in our memory and his humour lives on."

Jokes & Cigarettes is produced by Ikiru Films, Atresmedia Cine and La Terraza Films, with the participation of Atresmedia, Movistar Plus+, HBO Max, and with the support of ICEC and TVC. The film will be distributed in Spanish cinemas by Warner Bros Pictures. Its international sales agent is Film Factory.