‘La Bola Negra’ Directors Dig Into Generational Trauma: “Something Touched Deep Inside” – Contenders London

Spanish directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi delved into the generational trauma behind award-winning film La Bola Negra at Deadline’s Contenders London.

The feature – revolving around the interconnected stories of three gay men in 1932, 1937 and 2017 – took its cue from Alberto Conejero’s 2013 play La piedra oscura, which in turn was inspired by García Lorca’s unfinished play La Bola Negra.

At the heart of the La piedra oscura is the love story between real-life football player Rafael Rodríguez Rapún and Lorca during the Spanish Civil War. The work is spun into another story in the film about a young trumpeter called Sebastián, played by singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente.

“When I read in the plane the first monologue, I started to cry… something touched deep inside, like a wound I didn’t know I had about like my country and what happened like 90 years ago,” he said.

He and Javier Ambrossi then investigated Lorca’s play and discovered it was unfinished.

“We realized it was the first play he was going to portray a gay character, so it was going to be revolutionary. But he was murdered. He couldn’t do it, and we were like, ‘What a loss!’”

The directorial duo went to Granada to consult the screenplay which is preserved at the Centro Federico Garcia Lorca.

“We got to see the four pages and there was like a power in those pages, like art as a physical thing, because the niece of Lorca said that fascism wanted to destroy all the manuscripts when the war started, but everyone hid it. So, it felt like a weapon that fascism wanted to destroy. We start from there, imagining what ‘La Bola Nera’ could have been, mixing it with ‘La pieda scura’, and then we had our present timeline.”

Ambrossi said the four pages had acted as a character blueprint for their film.

“The beautiful thing about the four pages that exist of the unfinished work by Federico Garcia Lorca is that the first page is a list of characters he was going use,” he said. “It was like a challenge, you know. I was like, oh my god, if we reimagine this world, it could be something very beautiful.”

Penélope Cruz, who has a small role as Nené Romero, a Cuplé singer entertaining soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, also joined the conversation.

Cruz said she was a big fan of the directors’ work – which includes The Messiah and Veneno – and instructed her to set up a lunch.

“Like after 10 minutes we were friends and then they told me they were writing this movie, and there was a character that they thought about sending, but they thought it was too short. And I told them never worry about that with me. Like I don’t choose the material based on how many minutes the character is on screen,” she recounted.

“A few days later they sent it, and I completely fell in love with the Nené, and I was blown away by this script. I thought I don’t know if they realize how incredible and powerful this is what they have in their hands.”