Her City View

To learn more about Daniela Forever, a sci-fi journey through love, loss, and illusion, I interviewed visionary filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, who shared about tailoring a film to actors, dealing with grief and the beauty of filming in Madrid.

Note: I was invited as media for #DanielaForever screening and interview. However any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.

Did you have a choice in the actors and how they fit the characters

Nacho Vigalondo: Most filmmakers, we don't have the power to know or to decide each role in a film. The real thing is that if you make a movie, then you're lucky enough to have someone like, Henry Golding and Beatrice Grannò, be in the film.

And I love the idea of having him (Henry Golding) playing a role that is so different from the roles that he normally plays. I appreciate the massive amount of confidence that this guy is putting on me.

Like, okay, like he's open to do something completely different in my hand. And I feel like, Oh my God, I need to do what I'm suppose to do now, going back to the script as a tailor and fit everything.

Nacho Vigalondo: Every time I have the chance to speak to young people, who want to make films, the first thing that I say to them is be clear, be a tailor and be able to adjust the movie to reality, instead of just hitting the hammer.

Because the movie is about a British guy, who is lost in Madrid and finds an Italian girl, and they are both foreigners, and they are lost in different ways. And he's exhausted over being in a foreign city, but her eyes are allowing him to open his and see the beauty around.

While I fixed some of the script to fit them, the script is something sorta like a vague cloud. Once the movie becomes real, you turn the cloud into something.

How did you decide how to explore mourning in this new way with dream state therapy and real life interactions.

Nacho Vigalondo: For me the core of the movie is to talk about grief, because if you are lucky enough to get old, you are going to suffer grief. It's something that is the second most normal thing in our lives, and the first one is death itself.

I went through a really deep and hard state of grief, and I just wanted to talk about it in a beautiful way. Allowing myself to build a canvas that includes jokes, VFX, costumes, like tragedy, but also the sense of mystery and adventure.

I wanted to make a movie that gives all the elements that I want, every time I go to the movies. But at the end of the day, I want this movie to be trapped inside the idea of grief.

Any research on sleep therapy

Nacho Vigalondo: I did some but there come a point in which if you do a lot of research, you are tempted to visually put it on the movie, like look how much information I have gathered about this.

And that the real danger because people don't care, especially if you're making a science fiction film. If you are making a movie that's a fantasy film, that is not real, people don't feel rewarded if you're putting too much information.

Information is rewarding if you're making a real life drama, or if you're making a documentary or noir film, but you're doing if you're dealing with science fiction, people have no patience, and people get bored, so easy. So you have to make a movie a light movie, even if you have all the info.

In terms of balancing the humor, the romance, the mystery, how did you kind of decide to balance it all.

Nacho Vigalondo: That is a tricky question, because the only answer that I can give is doing a lot of hard work. At the end of the day you need, like, tons and tons of intuition, because you're not following numbers, I try to feel something and be sincere all the time.

For example, I know that for some people the movie is too long. And I get it. Some people wanted a more frantic film, and I totally get it.

But if I'm true to myself, if I'm making a movie about these feelings, this depressed feeling. And I know, I know what it is depressed, and I know what depression is doing to your sense of time.

Nacho Vigalondo: My intuition told me make a movie that feels depressed, but in a funny way, rather than making a traditional three letter or making like a mystery film.

You have to play things to a level that may harm the movie to some audience but feels true to you. And you have to push for that. You don't know if you're making things right or real. You are trying to adjust your desires and truth to the expectation that you know the movie is going to fight against. So it's a tricky thing.

What's your favorite scene

Nacho Vigalondo: My favorite scene? Maybe depends on the time.

I love when they spends the night just having a music live show. The band that plays, the two guys with mustache. That is the first moment in the movie she (Beatrice Grannò) feels alive and real. And that is the first time when he (Henry Golding) feels a bit possessive.

And the music is so beautiful and the light of the show is really great. The location is one of the most beautiful places in Madrid, which is like an Egyptian temple in the middle of the city.

But what do you want audiences to take away after watching this

Nacho Vigalondo: The thing I like the most about movies is that they are alive time and time about the screening.

When someone on social media tells me, they went with their partner to watch the film and they've been discussing the ending all night long, I'm like that is perfect for me, a movie that's discussed afterwards, for me is a movie that is alive.

And I know that is a chance for the movie to survive time.

Daniela Forever opened in Theaters July 11 and is now on Digital July 22.

SYNOPSIS

Grieving the loss of his girlfriend Daniela, Nicolás is consumed by sorrow. He sees a glimmer of hope when he's offered a chance to participate in a groundbreaking sleep therapy that simulates reality.

But as dream and memory blur, he must confront what healing really means—and whether he’s ready to let go.

Cast: Henry Golding, Beatrice Grannò, Aura Garrido, Rubén Ochandiano, & Nathalie Poza

Written & Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo

DANIELA FOREVER Official Trailer | In Theaters July 11



Learn more, visit - www.wellgousa.com/films/daniela-forever