After finishing his mammoth tour around the album The Madrid native and the release of the documentary Esa ambition inordinate (Movistar Plus+), about that entire stage that would fundamentally mark him, Anton Alvarez He wanted to change his register, and it seemed clear that his inclinations were related to the world of cinema.
“I wanted to direct,” says Antón Álvarez, also known as C. Tanganaa Infobae Spain. “What I didn't know is that it was going to be a story with real characters. I thought that if I got behind the camera it would be to make fiction, but, suddenly, I felt that this step, through documentary connected with music, was a very natural path for me.”
It all started when he met Yerai Cortes, flamenco guitarist which left him astonished because, as he says, “he was respected by moderns and gypsies”, since his style was linked to tradition but, at the same time, with the search for new paths close to experimentation.
They were destined to meet and admire each other. After all, in his musical career as C. TanganaAntón Álvarez has also been mutating when it comes to discovering new sounds and modernizing popular genres.
But beyond that professional connection, which has led them to make a disc setthey also decided that the project would go even further. Therefore, they embarked on a filming process not only about the songs, but above all about what is behind them. Or, what is the same, of the personal germ that runs through them, in this case, a trauma familiar from Yerai himself, who learned after the death of his supposed aunt that she was actually his sister.
That news completely shocked him and also changed the way he related to those around him. Therefore, it was essential that the people closest to its core appear in the film, that is, his mother and his fatherseparated for years, his partner and his friends.
“When I met Yerai, he told me about the album he was making and that would be titled The flamenco guitar of Yerai Cortés, in which he would talk about his life through music, and about that secret that he wanted to exorcise. Each song corresponded to a chapter of his personal career, so it made sense that, if we recorded something in images, it would have a narrative nature,” Álvarez continues.
For Antón, the basis of everything is in emotion. “They are strong stories, of love, of wounds that remain inside or that heal over time, and although they correspond to one person, I think they are quite transversal. I think every viewer who sees the film will bond with it in some way.”
The new director says that, in some way, everything was already in Yerai Cortés' head and that he was the one who planted the seed of the documentary, which has been produced by Little Spainhis producer. “I just had to convince him to make a film that would also be the album. For me, currently the formats do not exist. What is the difference between releasing an album that has ten video clips and releasing a movie? Let's say that for me, this project is a hybrid between those structures.”
The result is The flamenco guitar of Yerai Cortésa documentary that opened the New Directors Section in the past San Sebastian Festival and who has just been nominated for Goya. In it there are wonderful musical moments linked with moments of enormous intimacy, composing an extraordinary emotional x-ray of a character in search of his own identity.
The director says that he never had the intention of making a portrait of the life of gypsies, but rather a generational journey to highlight the differences between parents and children and how emotional management is handled depending on the circumstances, as well as the weight of inheritance. “It was never my intention to do anything like a portrait of the gypsy community. The film itself does not take into account whether they were gypsies or not, also because Yerai himself symbolizes that, having a mixed culture. Yes I was interested erase prejudices”.
Antón Álvarez assures that it has been an exercise of liberation in which he has tried to approach the characters and their problems from a clean look without artifice. “We took the camera and tried to capture the first impressions without makeup,” he says.
For the director, the film talks about universal themes like love and family relationships. He himself appears in it because he did not want the film to be a conventional documentary, nor a 'biopic' or a report.
-Question: What references did you handle?
-Answer: I did not intend to make a documentary, but rather a film with a clear structure. But I am still a beginner and I maintain a bit of that innocence, that of facing something without having many references. If I had to say a movie linked to this one, it would be Honeyland (documentary of Macedonian origin about the last female bee collector in Europe). Afterwards, they told me two titles that connect very well, and that I have seen recently, which are night function y The disenchantment.
-Have you felt, in any way, the 'imposter syndrome'?
-I recently read a guy who talked about how all artists now seemed to need to make a documentary. It seems like a very poor look to me. For me, making films or music are not so separate, I have faced both things in the same way, I like that everything I do has a transgressive point. For me, making a movie is a journey, and making a song is the same. Therefore, I think that people who like The Madrilenian You will like this movie, because they contain the same essence.
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