Jonás Trueba: “Not enough attention has been paid to young people”

The paths of Jonah Trueba and Candela Recio converged on ‘The reconquest’. She was 13 years old and played the character of Itsaso Arana in a youth chapter in which Pablo Hoyos also appeared. When they were finishing the sound montage of the film, Candela turned 15 years old, and Rafael Berrio recorded a version of his song ‘Who prevents it’ as a birthday gift. Neither of them knew it yet, but there the germ of something that had yet to be defined had been generated. The director only had one certainty, that he had the need to continue filming those two young people, but without them being characters from a fiction, but owners of their own story.

Thus began the journey of ‘Who prevents it’. A journey that has had many phases, that has been mutating at every moment, that has been built as Candela, Pablo and the other colleagues who joined the project grew, they were consolidating their personality and expressing their concerns and their needs throughout the process.

“At the end of ‘La reconquista’, I had an enormous anxiety to shoot in a different way, to take the camera and experiment. And he also had the need to follow Candela and Pablo. I wanted to capture a vital moment and get to know in a close way that new generation that was not being paid enough attention & rdquor ;, Jonás Trueba tells EL PERIÓDICO.

There was no specific plan. Young people joined ‘Who prevents it’ until they created a similar group and with a similar spirit. Sometimes Candela would bring some friends and they would join the recording, but there was also a search process on the part of Jonás in the institutes of Madrid to configure what he expresses as “a natural selection of casting, very random & rdquor ;. “In the end we were a group of friends filming & rdquor;says the director. “Something that is not too different from my previous films, in which I have been repeating with the same actors out of pure connection & rdquor ;.

Energy and freedom

In reality, although ‘Who prevents it’ is considerably different from the films that Jonás Trueba had shot so far (as well as from all Spanish cinema in general), there are many elements that can be traced throughout his filmography, such as the need to break with the hegemonic structure of the story, the digressions within the discourse, the characters halfway between the true and the fictitious, and the musical moments.

When they had been shooting for two years, they edited a series of pieces that were screened for the first time at the Cineteca and went through different festivals, such as D’A. They wanted to test whether what they were doing connected with the public. After the first viewing, they staged a concert at Matadero Madrid in which the participants had to do versions of ‘Who prevents it’ on stage. A moment that is captured on the screen as an outbreak of enormous energy and freedom and in which Rafael Berrio himself was present before he passed away. Later the pandemic would arrive, and that outbreak of tumult and party would give way to social distance and conversations by Zoom. “It seemed important to me to integrate all of this into the narrative, because the pandemic has split the world in half, before and after. How did they see themselves in that situation now? & Rdquor ;, Trueba continues.

Related news

In addition to the talks between the characters, the excursions and the links that develop between them (including a fictional chapter of a romantic nature), there are fundamental episodes in the film, such as the 2019 elections. Just that day, Candela was turning 18 years old. and was able to vote for the first time. And is that politics is very present in ‘Who prevents it’. “They have grown up at a time of great intensity and political transformation in the country. My generation was asleep, that’s why 15-M was so important, but they have integrated it into their lives, that’s why that first approach to the polls was so crucial (and so symbolic) for them & rdquor ;.

‘Who prevents it’ is a river film, a life film, an essay film. Jonás Trueba has composed a monument to the youth of our country without having the ambition to do so. And that is why it is so revealing, unique and unrepeatable.