Filming has just begun at the Reina Sofía Museum and the Teatro Circo Price in Madrid for Obra maestra, an original Movistar Plus+ documentary directed by Isaki Lacuesta. The shoot will later move to the Basque town of Gernika-Lumo and to Cape Breton Island in Canada. Lacuesta, who has twice won the Golden Shell at San Sebastián (for The Double Steps [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Isaki Lacuesta
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Obra maestra is a documentary with thriller elements that recounts the disappearance and subsequent search for Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi, a steel sculpture created in 1986 by the late American artist Richard Serra. It was not an easy piece to misplace: the work consisted of four separate steel blocks weighing a total of 38 tonnes. Movistar Plus+ provides the following synopsis: “Is it possible for a sculpture to disappear from the Reina Sofía Museum’s storerooms without a trace? Yes… and that's exactly what happened.”

The feature film is based on the novel of the same name by writer Juan Tallón, which raises a series of questions: How could something like this possibly have happened? How does a copy become an original? What really became of that famous, enormous, heavy steel sculpture that vanished into thin air? And is there any chance it might one day reappear?

The screenplay is written by Adrià P. Xancó (the series Las largas sombras) together with Lacuesta himself. “We’ve started filming, and in the few days we’ve been at it so far, we’ve been working with ministers, crooks, scrap dealers, police chiefs from the heritage squad, artists, pseudo-artists, performers, journalists, terrorists and, above all, Juan Tallón, who, as well as being the writer behind this film, is proving to be this year’s breakthrough actor,” says the filmmaker.

Juan Tallón responds: “Lacuesta is the best director this film could have had. I feel very lucky, because it’s not just that Isaki is directing, but that he’s supported by his team. He experiments with the narrative style of his films like no one else and pushes the boundaries between fiction and documentary. I feel like he’s always looking to do something new, and that’s fantastic: giving the world something it didn’t have before. I think the documentary will take the novel a step further and be even more multi-layered.” It is worth noting that Lacuesta – whose series Ravalear, co-directed with Pol Rodríguez, is set to premiere on HBO Max in May – has previously explored other artistic disciplines in works such as The Clay Diaries [+leggi anche:
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Obra maestra is an original Movistar Plus+ documentary film, produced by José Manuel Lorenzo for DLO Producciones.