‘Strong and Refined’: Penelope Cruz lands one of her best roles in this Spanish social thriller

What is it about? A lawyer with strong social convictions, Rafa has until midnight to find the mother of a little girl left alone in an unsanitary den. Otherwise, the police will place the child at home. In a race for time, Rafa crosses paths with Azucena, a woman who is unfairly threatened with banishment and who tries to instigate a citizen’s revolt to escape her. As the hours pass strangely for these two warring souls, Madrid becomes a place of all sorts of rage…

Actor behind the camera

Juan Diego Boto is an actor and screenwriter for the theater. Disgusted, he made his first feature film: “Almost all my theater revolves around the same theme. In general, exile, impunity, memory are very much in my work. Even the last work I wrote, Une nuit sans Lune on García Lorca, which I thought differently. After analysis, I. I realized that I wrote again about a missing man, a person who was kidnapped from his home, illegally detained, tortured, shot and disappeared.”

“We still don’t know where his body is.” I believe that my theater agrees with À Contretemps in two respects: first, the issue of impunity, this human struggle against invisible institutions that are much more powerful than the individual. And the second point is the price of this struggle, the price of activism, so to speak, for those who are trying to change something and which Rafa (Luis Tosar) represents. Others see him as a hero, but he also leaves something behind.”

Juan Diego Boto has acted in more than 50 Spanish, Argentine and American films, as well as dozens of television plays and several plays. In his films, we can cite the roles he holds in the films “Broken Silence”, “Obaba” – Monxo Armendariz, “Full Moon” – Imanol Uribe, “The Europeans”, “Get Away From Me” by Victor Garcia Leon, “High Dancer” – John Malkovich, “Suicide Squad” – James. Guni (dictator Silvio Luna) or Roma by Adolfo Aristarin.

He also wrote six plays, including Invisible Trozo from Este Mundo (MAX Awards for Best Show, Best Actor and Best New Writer) and Una Noche Sin LunaFor which he received three MAX awards, as well as the 2021 National Theater Award.

The birth of the project

À Contretemps was born out of a conversation between Juan Diego Botto and Penelope Cruz (the filmmaker and the actress had known each other since they were teenagers): “He suggested I write it for a movie. I started writing and had an idea for a scene in which a couple were discussing the day before the rental. It went from there.”he explains.

Learn about eviction

Thanks to Olga Rodríguez, journalist and co-writer of the film, Juan Diego Boto learned in depth about the eviction situation. For over a year, they conducted extensive research with families in the process of eviction and interviewed educators, social workers, and lawyers: “When you are deeply aware of this reality, it is very difficult to stay away from what is clearly an attack, a social insult, both towards and against the most disadvantaged.”

“This story motivated us. There were many versions of the script because many years passed between writing and financing, and then there was the pandemic. It was a very long process. In the story, the concrete reality, the point of view is implicit, the point of view about the ethics in question is implicit in the injustice that is said”The director recalls.

Non-professional actors

If the film is carried by very big stars, Juan Diego Boto also called non-professional actors for certain roles: “The research process was so long, so difficult, and so productive that we felt it included those who so generously let us into their homes and told us their stories.”

“One day Olga Rodríguez had the idea of ​​filming an assembly, so we included this footage and knew it had to be a real assembly where everyone was talking about their work. Reality is always much more powerful and heartbreaking than reality. Fiction. Their stories are terrifying. Their real If we had told the cases, the film would have been much more dramatic.”

A high-flying actor

Juan Diego Boto assembled a high-flying cast: “As for Penelope, it was obvious. He is at the head of the story. because Lewis also. From the moment this lawyer character appeared, I immediately thought of him. He is one of the best actors in Spain. Then we held an audition Adelpha Calvo (Theodora).

“He’s an outstanding actor who seemed a little young for the character. We envisioned him as older. But he auditioned so well that he could only be him. Young Christian Cheka It’s also amazing. We’ve interviewed hundreds of teenagers and Christian has landed some outstanding auditions.

“The same thing happened Aykha Villagran (Elena). We had already made our selection before this last audition. He woke me up. And I said to myself: “This is it.” He did something very different from others. What stands out in the film, I think, is the excellent work of all the actors.”The Spanish director recalls.