‘Spanish Files’ It is a project built around the freak UFO in Spainwho experienced a real boom In the 70s, with hundreds of cases of sightings of unidentified objects or alleged encounters with aliens that covered pages in the media. The Alicante photographer José Luis Carrillo, author of works such as Smoking Club o the children of the deercarries three years following in the footsteps of some of these events, confronted with recent experiences, with the intention of translating it into a photobook. However, when visiting the places, talking with experts and with the protagonists of some cases, the photobook fell short and he embarked Daniel Martinezvideographer and documentary filmmaker, to expand the idea with a documentary short film. The circle is completed with Guillermo Alcalá-Santaella, from Marallavi Filmswhich is in charge of executive production.
“Spanish Files is a review of the UFO phenomenon in Spain since the seventies, when it experienced its great explosion, with waves in successive years and cases that opened newspaper covers or generated television programs such as those of Jiménez del Oso. The idea was rescue some of those great caseslike the one in Manises in 1979 -which forced a plane to make an emergency landing in front of several unidentified objects-, the one in Próspera Muñoz, the first “abducted” woman or Adrián Sánchez, chased by a UFO”, explains Carrillo, who In turn, he has looked for more current cases among people between 40 and 50 years of age who have lived some phenomenon in the first person.
“I’m not interested in finding an extraterrestrial explanation for history, that remains as something anecdotal. What attracts me is show the human side and see what happens to the people who experience a UFO phenomenon, whether real or imagined”, indicates Carrillo, who adds that experiences of this depth “they last a long time and in general there is a need to search for explanations in these people. In the end they are seekers. Some end up looking for meaning in religions, in sects, in ufology groups or in meditation and yoga.”
himself, when he made the children of the deer in a depopulated part of Spain, experienced something similar seeing two spheres of light crossing the sky that disappeared. “I don’t know what it was, nor do I have an explanation for what I saw, but from then on I became interested in this subject”, points out the photographer, whose work in ‘Spanish Files’ goes in two directions: on the one hand, show the portraits of people who have experienced phenomena “with the idea of transmitting their emotion” (from past or recent experiences, as well as from researchers of the phenomenon, soldiers, psychologists, pilots, etc.) and, on the other, to reflect the places where some of these cases occurred “with a look from the strange and the ufologicaleither. They are real places in Spain that take us to Martian scenarios”.
The book is expected to be finished in October. and the documentary, of which Carrillo is in charge of the photography and Daniel Martínez of the direction, recording and sound, is in the editing phase with a help of 5,000 euros from the call for subsidies for cultural projects from the Department of Culture. both have traveled “about ten thousand kilometers through Spain by car chasing UFOs from Seville to Finisterre”without a production team to create an environment that offered “the naturalness and intimacy that we needed” for the recordings.
In his opinion, although the UFO phenomenon has lost the social significance of the 1970s, it still occurs, “but society today is increasingly skeptical and rationalist and we don’t believe things that don’t have a scientific explanation, something that It didn’t happen fifty years ago.” He, however, emphasizes that Spanish Files it focuses on people, not on the explanation of strange phenomena. “In the end, I’m always moved by what happens to people and I try to get out of the conventional way of looking with projects outside the margins. I refuse that reality is so simple, “she concludes.