On Friday 16/11 the premiere of the film hits Spanish screens The disinterment, first film by Valencian director Nacho Ruipérez. The disinterment It is a co-production between Spain and Argentina made entirely with a Valencian technical team and starring Eduardo Sbaraglia., Michel Noher, Jan Cornet, Jordi Rebellón or Germán Torres. Here we find two cousins, Jordi and Diego, who are on the trail of their respective parents. Jordi's father was an honest man, but without a defined future, while Diego ended up being a politician entangled in a corruption case. Both seem united by a dark past to resolve.. From here, The two cousins begin a journey to that past to discover what happened. In the middle of all this, We find a world of mafias and dark characters set among roadside brothels and houses hidden among rice fields..
For Nacho Ruipérez, set the film in Valencia, it was fundamental. That local setting, however, does not affect your ambition to reach a wider audience. “It's a movie that we wanted to shoot here because they are topics that touch us deeply., some of them unfortunately, but that's not why we wanted to make a local film, in the bad sense of the word. We wanted to make a film that takes place here, with values from here, with actors and actresses from here, and technicians from here, but can be seen all over the world, that can be enjoyed, that may interest viewers even beyond Spain. A film with an international vocation. I think it's something we need. In essence it is a film about the search for identity through the figure of the father and, with that, of memory restitution. The theme of the film is something that we have been experiencing for a long time and that I believe is part of the DNA., both from our country and from Argentina”. The young Argentine actor Michel Noher confirmed Ruipérez's reflections through his character, one of the two protagonists of this story. “It is the story of a boy who is looking for his father, but what, In fact, he is also looking for himself. There is a broken feeling over what he thinks was abandonment and that he needs to resolve.. In that sense, it touches on this theme, but from the place of thriller, without the need to enter into a political pamphletary issue, but it is pure emotion and entertainment with very good touches of humor and, above all, a beautiful sample of the Valencian landscape, from Albufera, that I did not know and I had the pleasure of knowing thanks to this film”.
The issue of political corruption immediately comes up in the conversation, both for the theme of the film and for its enduring presence in our times. “I always say that the people who tell stories have a moral responsibility”, Ruipérez commented. “Let's remember that this is nothing new, We had a very well-known author in Valencia, Chirbes., who also told us about cases of corruption. And I'm talking about a long time ago, It might be because it has gone on too long.. We did not want to go into any specific case or with specific names., but to make a corollary of what the guignol would be, because it is something that is still surreal. In the film we wanted to portray him as he is and I think we did not go too far., which is quite faithful to reality”.
For his debut, Nacho Ruipérez has decided to embark on a complex thriller genre with very convoluted plots that unfold their secrets as the film progresses. Writing the script for this film was an arduous task., as the director himself acknowledges. “It hasn't been easy. We have shot the version 35 script. I must say that much of the blame lies with Mario Fernández Alonso, who is my co-writer, and so many people who have helped us.. Note that we have even had the advice of someone like Sergi Castillo Prats, who is the journalist who has published in his books all the sewers of corruption cases, as money junkies. And all this is necessary, all that trip, definitely, what it does is stretch pre-production times, but in the end it remains in the movie. Yeah, It was very complicated, but it is also the cinema that we like”. This dramatic construction job comes with a notable invoice, fruit of careful production, as the Valencian producer recognized at a press conference, Ximo Perez, for whom the director's desire to film in different periods was a headache. “It was filmed in September to capture all the rice fields in that yellowish ocher color that was just the rice harvest.”, and then another time at the end of November when the fields are flooded with water. in script, Nacho insisted that the before and after [of the plot] out in different locations. And then having to cut filming and having to go several months later, had its complications. And then another very important thing is the large number of actors there are who come from Türkiye., from Macedonia, from Romania, from Croatia, of course from Argentina and Spain. Everything else is the production that gives you having a budget that has been good for this film, eight weeks of filming, which gives you a production that is seen in the film at the image level”.
Without a doubt one of the main elements of this film are the spaces., in this case, the rice fields of Albufera. “For me it was a totally new landscape., It was my first time in Spain. I had the need to connect with that space in which my character's life was stopped a little.. And one of the first things I asked Nacho was to visit those spaces. And we spent some time thinking about the scenes, about what things had happened to build that childhood”, comments actor Michel Noher. From there, Working with the rest of the cast was very intense., assured. “With Leo [Smash] It was chatting and seeing what things we found in common with these characters who are never seen together in the film., but like every father and son, they have gestures and issues that are common, that are in genetics. There is something self-destructive in both of them., something about not measuring the consequences too much and, at the same time, something of great nobility that equals them. A nobility that you don't know is there until it happens. They are innocent in that sense. They are heroes, but they are not conscious heroes. Circumstances are taking them to a place from which they do not move and they are willing to risk their lives for what they believe.”, the actor commented. For Nacho Ruipérez it was, fundamentally, of “a love story”, What happens is that it is told in a very subtle way, with very sensitive strokes. But I always interpreted it as a love story of two people who have a family bond.. But two people whose lives have been destroyed, "Their past has been manipulated and they help each other to achieve justice and to save themselves.".
music is, definitely, another of the fundamental axes of this production, a work that deliberately sought to connect with the viewer of a specific generation that is appealed to in the film. “There are several people responsible. One of them is a regular collaborator, Arnau Bataller who is from Alcira. We have several projects together and that makes you begin to understand each other in an organic way”, Ruipérez stood out. “One of the things that Arnau emphasized a lot is that we didn't have to make a very conventional soundtrack.. Second, that extra-diegetic music, what is additional music, it had to be music that would help give the film pedigree, as is the case of the themes that we have incorporated. There is a song by Bruno Lomas, for this small tribute that we pay him and there is also a song by Luis Bonias who was a DJ from the time of the bakalao route [in which part of the events take place]. And then there is the figure of Nacho Mañó who has made several songs in the film that, although they seem like original songs from that time, “We have recreated them.”.
Definitely, cinema with Valencian overtones, but with ambition. This is what Eduardo Sbaraglia himself described in the meeting with the media. “Nacho has done a very nice job, with a great production team and actors and we are happy to be able to present it in your homeland, with his people. There is great expectation for the film and this is very nice in these times when it seems that one does not know what to do to get people to go to the cinemas due to the great change that there is at a technological level and the great offer that there is on the platforms.. Cinema continues to be a place that feels sacred.. And it is still sacred to be able to make movies. For us, this profession is something beautiful and being able to share it in a room is something we will continue to fight for.”.
