debut in family cinema and in a post-apocalyptic Empordà

2023-10-12 06:59:30

the desire toBeloved Vallmajó del Pozo (Virgins, 1996) to portray on the big screen the journeys from his native Empordà to Eibar, where part of his family liveshave resulted in their first feature film, a curious road movie dystopian, Mission to Marswhich has already been through the Gijón Festivalwhere he obtained the special mention of the jury, the Berlin Critics’ Week and the San Sebastián festival. The first opera of the filmmaker from Vergelí, which has been released in theaters in Barcelona, ​​Bilbao or Madrid, arrives this Friday (9.30 p.m.) at the Torroella de Montgrí cinemaa special presentation, he points out, because “it will be at home”.

Trained in Audiovisual Communication in Barcelona and later in Sant Sebastià, Amat Vallmajó del Pozo has turned his final master’s project at the Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola into a delirious futuristic film that tells the story of two brothers – played by their uncles, Txomin and Gene del Pozo – who set off on a mission to Mars. The fragile health of one of the two and a toxic mist that mysteriously appears, however, makes them deviate from the path to find his sister Mila, that is to say, the director’s mother.

Involve all three of them to form the cast of Mission to Mars “It was quite easy, even though they complained all the time”, jokes the director, responsible for the script together with Carles Txorres.

Txomin and Gene’s journey through the north of Spain has a quixotic spirit, an explicit reference, points out Amat Vallmajó del Pozo, because “the grandfather was Don Quixote’s number 1 fan and it is a very important book for the family”.

“The starting point of the project was the family and to show this constant relationship we have had with the Basque Country, however the circumstances changed the film to also show a hostile and dystopian world which has reverberations with the inner world of my uncles, who are distrustful and with a conspiratorial point, and also with the external context, due to the pandemic”, explains the director of Verges.

A still from “Mission to Mars.” DdG

And the fact is that the filming, done in two stages, in Hosca, the Basque Country and the Baix Empordà, was marked by covid. “It was October 2020 and we were shooting alone in desert areas of Aragon when the Civil Guard stopped us to ask what we were doing”, he recalls.

The second part of the filming took place in Verges, in March 2021, for to show an Empordà “that is not the typical weekend territory”, but it does represent “the least dystopian scenario in the film, more tender because of the presence of the mother”. In a year in which the mythical Holy Thursday procession in Verges did not go normally, the confraternity staged the famous Dance of Death so that it appeared in one of the scenes of the film.

Mission to Mars it was shot in 16mm in black and white, a format that “in addition to having a magical and random point, forces you to focus on shooting what is essential”. The revealing process was completely handmade, in charge of Vallmajó del Pozo himself and the director of photography: “we learned on the fly, it has a very romantic and at the same time risky point, because a can was damaged and we lose part of the material”.

International tour

the movie it was premiered at the Gijón Festival and obtaining a special mention from the jury has opened the doors to many other international competitions, such as a parallel section of the Berlinale, San Sebastian and dates from Lisbon, Mexico and Israel. “It has been a very spectacular and unexpected start”, he admits.

Amat Vallmajó del Pozo is already writing his new project, this time about housing in Barcelona, ​​”a very hot topic”, which he wants to approach with “spirit thug but also of denunciation”.

It will again have non-professional actors, combined with other professionals, and his uncles will be present again, with a special memory for Gene, who died last week.