27/06/2023 - The filmmaker gives us the low-down on her new movie, a thriller with a highly allegorical title that unfolds during the tragic floods which turned the city of Valencia into a quagmire in 1957

Inés París (whose latest work before this saw her directing episodes of the series The Roar of the Butterflies) is mainly associated with comedy (Miguel y William, Semen (A Love Sample) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cesar Benítez
interview: Inés París & Daniela Fejerman
interview: Mariá Arellano - DeaAPlaneta
film profile]), but she still feels a special attachment to crime films, as demonstrated by her new feature, Olvido [+see also:
interview: Inés París
film profile] (lit. “Obscurity”), which has been presented at the 38^th Cinema Jove Festival. The gathering is currently being held in Valencia, which is the main setting for this movie that recreates the moment when the River Turia broke its banks in the mid-1900s. The independent film is being released in Valencian theatres on 30 July.

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Cineuropa: You had filmed in Valencia before this, but was it a phone call that made you aware of the flood we see in the film, or did you know about it already?
Inés París: It was a call, because one of the producers, José Luis Rancaño, saw my previous film [La noche que mi madre mató a mi padre [+see also:
trailer
film profile]] and thought of me, even though I’m better known for comedy. However, he knew that I’d made thrillers, especially for television, such as El accidente, starring Quim Gutiérrez and Inma Cuesta, and that I’d started off writing crime films, such as I Know Who You Are by Patricia Ferreira, which was also about historical memory. Then he suggested it to me: I had made The Barrier for television, as the script coordinator and executive producer, and I really fancied working in film again. There were two things about the screenplay for Olvido that got me hooked: as soon as I read it, I remembered that when I was a girl, our parents came to collect us from school because the river had become swollen and then everyone was terribly scared that there would be another flood like the one that happened in 1957; and I also liked the fact that the protagonist, who was called Olvido, was a female journalist, as at that time, there were very few women in that kind of role.

It's a historical film that begins with a disaster, but then it turns into a crime flick.
It should be interpreted as a thriller that takes place in the wake of a disaster: the year 1957 conditioned life in, and the very existence of, a whole country under a dictatorship. That’s a decisive factor because any thriller is a quest for the truth, but there are more transparent areas and other, darker, murkier universes caked in mud. The main characters in Olvido have to work in this muddy world, and that’s why there are different layers and tones in the film. But I prefer movies not to be predictable, even though genres possess certain clichés: you have to know how to play with that.

But what was it like filming in so much mud?
Horrifying! I’ve never been dirtier in my entire life! We filled our set in Valencia’s old shipyards with mud, but in addition, it rained like never before and the team decided to mercilessly drop us right in that mud. So there we were, and even though I’ve shot in places like Africa, this was the hardest experience of my professional life. But it was fun as well because it had an element of adventure to it, so we’ll never forget it.

The unusual lead duo made up of the sergeant (played by Morgan Blasco) and the journalist (played by María Caballero) join forces to bring to light a murky secret…
They were both very determined to serve, and the fact that he was a policeman at that politically charged time didn’t make him a bad person; rather, he was a victim as well, but above all, he was an honest man. Honesty is still a very dangerous attitude. That’s why when he sees that he’s being misled, he reacts. And he wants to do his job well. During the flood, many people did their duty, and this film talks about the value of doing your own job and doing it well. A police officer’s duty is to find out the truth, much more so than obeying orders. It’s the same as it is for a journalist, who wants to show real life.

But sometimes people obey orders even when they run contrary to their own personal principles.
You have to be very careful when blindly obeying orders, and capturing reality is sometimes very difficult. Olvido, the lead character who’s a journalist, does so because it allows her to get away from what they expect of her. They want her to report on ballroom dancing and the Sección Femenina [the women’s branch of the Falange political movement]; but no, she wants to tell people about what’s happening and about what she’s been seeing in the streets.

(Translated from Spanish)