Musical set to dramatise Spanish evictions tragedy
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Version 0 of 1. It’s a scene that has become all-too familiar across Spain – families struggling to stay off the streets and make ends meet after the bank seizes their home. But when Spanish film director Eduard Cortés decided to tell the story behind the more than half a million home evictions carried out in Spain since the economic crisis hit, he was determined to make his audience feel they were being told it for the first time. The answer, he decided, was through song and dance. “The term musical scares us a bit, because a musical about evictions sounds frivolous,” said Cortés, from the set of Cerca De Tu Casa (Near Your Home). “But we had to find a different way to tell the story that everyone has already heard.” Cortés’ film, which began filming this month, is a dramatisation of a common eviction story. It revolves around a couple and their 10-year-old daughter, who are evicted after both parents lose their jobs and can no longer make the payments on their mortgage. They move in with her parents, who as guarantors of the couple’s outstanding debt, now also face the threat of losing their home. The idea of adding song to the story came after difficulties in adapting the story for the cinema. Cortés decided to tell it exactly as it was, but that left him with the challenge of making his film stand out from a news story. “We realised that we were taking the story in a direction we weren’t happy with,” he said of the initial adaptation. “That’s when it occurred to me that it might be good if, in the most emotional moments, the actors would sing.” Cortés, a lifelong fan of musicals, was cautious about using music to address a serious social issue. The film introduces the songs – and one dance number – in very specific moments, he said, and the songs are set apart from the dialogue and dramatic action. He sought out Spanish singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz, well-known in Spain and France, for the main role, confident that she could sensitively use song to tackle the topic. Home evictions remain pervasive in Spain, despite the Spanish government’s insistence that the economic crisis is over. In 2014, as the Spanish economy boasted its fastest pace of growth in years, the courts gave the green light to more than 21,000 home evictions in the first six months of the year, roughly 116 per day. Cortés’s film also draws attention to a unique character of Spanish evictions, a century-old law stipulates that homeowners are often responsible for their mortgage even after the bank has seized the property. It leaves evicted families struggling to cope with both being homeless and on the hook for tens of thousands of euros – a debt, in the film, guaranteed by the couple’s parents. But despite the director’s prominence on the Spanish film scene, it took more than two years to raise the minimum funds to produce the film. Cortés’ project was finally able to advance thanks to the willingness of the crew and actors to forego their salaries and an ongoing crowdfunding campaign. The goal is to premiere the film in autumn, said Cortés, but the shortage of funds has left much up in the air. But he is determined to see the film through, attracted by the promise of drawing attention to an issue that has been largely ignored by Spanish authorities and which shows no little sign of disappearing. “The ultimate message of the film is that debt shouldn’t be able to destroy people’s lives the way that is has in Spain.” |