The director, David Serrano, and members of Hombres G, ahead of this weekend’s premiere in Spain. EFE
It is difficult for Spanish cinema to produce musicals; They come, but with droppers. David Serrano (screenwriter of through the beda musical that was the highest-grossing film of 2002) decided to revive Spanish billboards now with I’ll have funa oh mama with the songs of G-men that defies this “cursed genre”.
The definition is of David Summerssinger, bassist and composer of the legendary group of the 80s, which also participates as a producer of this romantic comedy told in two periods at the same time, when the protagonists were twelve and thirty years later. Both moments were based on the songs of the Madrid group.
“Musical is a cursed genre, very important artists, such as Julio Iglesias, have had enormous success, but their films have not worked. It’s a difficult, risky genre (…) When we did it Mamon suffersIn ’87, we discussed whether the movie wasn’t going to work, no matter how good the group was… Thank God we were wrong and it was a blockbuster, ”Summers says.
David Summers at a concert in Madrid. In the film he also participates as a producer.
“And this will go very well, we managed, together with the whole team, to convey very beautiful and positive emotions”, he predicts.
Musicians, artists and director speak with the Agency EFE on the occasion of the premiere of the musical, this weekend, in theaters all over Spain.
Rafa Gutierrezthe guitarist of the group adds that it was a challenge “to do a musical in mom Myin the sense that it is the music of a group – as, ABBAhere, we-, but the musicians have nothing to do with it, it’s a parallel story “. Specifically, Summers says, it’s the director’s story.
“Well yes, it’s my own life. I tell my first love, what happened to me with Layla, the story of my friends … It’s super autobiographical “, confesses David Serrano to EFE, convinced that he was able to make this film thanks to the experience and training that directing the theatrical musical gave him. Billy Elliotbecause shooting a musical with children “is very complicated,” he says.
Explain that the manufacturer Enrico Lopez Lavigne (also producer of the musical The call, 2017) had bought the rights to the songs and wanted to do another musical. And they got there.
“Note that the film started on commission and became the most personal of my career“, Serrano points out. To the point where the actor who plays the protagonist’s father is his father.
“Mamma Mia”, with Meryl Streep, a musical film that the G Men take as a reference during the talk.
There are few changes in reality: his childhood was spent in the city of Albacete, from 9 to 13, not in Valladolid, as happens in I’m going to feel good. When he returned to Madrid he found “a very inhospitable city”.
“We needed a small town that would allow us to do our outrages, that had a nice historic center, that we could shoot like it was the 80s and that had a film festival. For me it was important that it was real.” Serrano says.
plot details
The film begins in the presentwhen David, the director’s alter ego (played by Raúl Arévalo), discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Layla (the Mexican Karla Suza), will receive an award at the Valladolid Film Festival (SEMINCI). She is a famous director and he hasn’t heard from her for thirty years.
This is why they spend a week together; memories appear intertwined with the songs of your favorite band and they both go back to 1989 when they just started the academic year and notice that they like each other.
In fact, Layla has nothing to do with movies but Serrano he recovered it 34 years later to help him write the script. “It was really amazing,” she says.
The musicians had to modify, shorten and change the songs a bit so that the children could sing them, but always keeping the imprint of the group. The work of the choreographer is also noteworthy Iker Carrera, with which the children, most of them without dance or film experience.
Only Rodrigo Díaz (who plays Paco Perona, Dani Rovira as an adult), came from “Billy Elliot”.
Izan Fernández (David, the protagonist), plays a calm boy “but capable of doing crazy things for love,” he says; and Rodrigo Gibaja, is Luis, “the most positive”, a nice guy who usually speaks in rhymes and proverbs; he wears braces on one leg but is never far behind.
EFE agency
Source: Clarin
