Project Spotlight: Little Ashes

[***PLEASE NOTE: This entry contains key plot information and behind-the-scenes production notes from the upcoming March 2009 film 'Little Ashes'. Some may consider this information "spoiler-ish".***]

Three rebels willing to take on the world. Two lovers risking it all. One story, untold until now.

Though the film ‘Little Ashes’ will not hit theatres in the United States until March 2009, the film is already stirring a wave of positive reaction and impressive word of the performances of the film’s trio of principals–Javier Beltrán, Robert Pattinson and Matthew McNulty. The three actors star in this period piece amidst the repression and political unrest of pre-Spanish Civil War.

SYNOPSIS:

Madrid 1922. A city wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of Jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dalí (Pattinson) arrives at university at the age of 18 years old and determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university’s social elite – Federico García Lorca (Beltrán) and Luis Buñuel (McNulty).

Mr. Javier Beltrán

Salvador is absorbed into their decadent group and for a time Salvador, Luis and Federico becomes a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid. However, as time passes, Salvador feels an increasingly strong pull towards the charismatic Federico – who is himself oblivious of the attentions he is getting from his beautiful writer friend, Magdalena (Marina Gatell). Finally, in the face of his friends’ preoccupations – and Federico’s growing renown as a poet – Luis sets off for Paris in search of his own artistic success.

Mr. Robert Pattinson

Federico and Salvador spend the holiday in the sea-side town of Cadaqués. Both the idyllic surroundings and the warmth of the Dalí family sweep Federico off his feet. Salvador and he draw closer, sharing their deepest beliefs, inspirations and secrets, convinced that they have found a kind of friendship undreamt of by others. It is more than a meeting of the minds; it is a fusion of souls. And then one night, in the phosphorescent water, it becomes something else.

A seemingly innocent kiss throws Federico and Salvador into the realms of the taboo. In the world of Spanish Catholicism, homosexuality is an affront against God and man. On their return to Madrid the two embark on an unspoken, secret relationship. When Luis visits, he is appalled to realize that Federico is apparently in love with Salvador. He leaves the city in shock rather than confronting his one-time friend.

Mr. Matthew McNulty

Salvador visits Luis in Paris and returns determined to separate himself from both Federico and Madrid–Luis has convinced him that both are proving detrimental to his career. Federico, increasingly fearful of his emotions, now becomes terrified of the thought of losing Salvador. One fateful afternoon the situation escalates as, frustrated and manipulated, Federico has sex with Magdalena while Salvador watches. The episode leaves Federico distraught as Salvador becomes colder than ever, leaving for Paris.

Alone in Madrid, Federico struggles against his psyche, tortured by the damning implications of his own religious beliefs and the undeniable voice of his flesh. He is haunted by news of Salvador who is collaborating on a Surrealist film with Luis and has embarked on an affair with a married woman – Gala.
Finally, Magdalena forces Federico come to terms with his sexuality and carry on with his life.

By 1936, while Spain is teetering on the precipice of civil war, Federico, now a highly acclaimed and controversial playwright, receives an invitation to dinner from Salvador and Gala. But the hosts have a rather unusual agenda and the evening is a disaster. A week later, Salvador is hosting a party when he discovers that Federico has been assassinated in the outbreak of war. The walls of self-denial that surround the artist come crashing down as he realizes, too late, the depth of his love for Federico.

Mr. Javier Beltrán and Mr. Robert Pattinson

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

By the 20th century, Spain had devolved from being one of the most powerful countries in the world, to a poor and backward country where corruption was rife. It had lost nearly all of its overseas territories such as Cuba and the Philippines and the extreme classes of wealth and poverty caused severe social tensions. Industry was limited and the power and wealth of the Catholic Church was greatly resented by many and seen as an enemy of change. Although the majority of Spaniards did not go to mass, the Church had a strong following in the countryside where religious devotion was strong and had a virtual monopoly on education.

With an army consisting of too many officers and poorly equipped soldiers, economic depression led to strikes and unrest and the emergence of a right-wing military dictatorship, but that too failed and King Alfonso XIII abdicated the following year. A republic was declared with Alcala Zamora as provisional prime minister. The Republican government brought in a series of anti-Church measures. The measures against the church alienated the right wing of Spanish society who saw the Catholic Church at the heart of Spanish civilization. Zamora resigned in protest and the new prime minister was the anti-clerical liberal, Manuel Azana.

These on-going polarizing measures led to the foundation of the right-wing and Catholic CEDA party led by Gil Robles. At the same time a fascist party led by the son of Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio was set up. It was called the Falange (Phalanx). In 1934 a general strike opposing the government was called and an anarchist miners’ revolt was crushed by General Franco. Mass arrests followed and left wing newspapers were closed. the monarchist politician, Calvo Sotelo was assassinated by Republican police in revenge for the murder of one of their men by a Falangist. The military had found a reason to revolt. About half of the army remained loyal to the government and the revolt failed in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and the Basque country. Workers and peasants militias were formed to defend the government.

Crucially the elite army of Morocco supported the revolt, led by General Franco. By August the rebels held most of the North and North West while the government controlled the South and the North Coast.

Ms. Marina Gatell

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:

For me, ‘Little Ashes’ is first and foremost a love story, moving and tender. This is a forbidden love between two men that moves from a silent, aching longing to one incandescent and glorious moment of promise, only to end in rejection and disillusionment. Lorca’s love for Dalí gives the movie its shape, its dramatic spine. This is first and foremost an actor’s movie, truthful and beautiful, intimate and spare. The performances dominate.

The audience, with Lorca, will fall in love with the shy and brilliant Dalí, and be captivated by his sensitivity and vulnerability, hidden behind his poses and charades. We admire and fear for him in his outrageousness. Later, we fear more for Lorca as we realize that Dalí’s masks have become his face; that he has begun to believe in his act, and that Lorca and his love are becoming the victims of Dalí’s narcissism and ambition.

So this is also a film about integrity. Encouraged by Magdalena, Lorca keeps faith with his beliefs, his roots, his work, and- eventually- his sexuality. Dalí chooses notoriety and success and a fantastic kind of elitism over deeper values. Dalí became an early exponent and manipulative genius of the culture of celebrity. Philippa’s screenplay is thus both of its time and incontrovertibly fresh and modern.

These are universal themes, which a wide audience can understand and identify with. This is a film about artists but not a film about art. It is beautiful, funny, moving and thoughtful, one which looks beyond an “art film” audience. Ironically, Dalí’s very notoriety, in America as well as in Europe, may help us to find this wider audience.

This is also a film about a moment in time, about a political and personal change in a period of upheaval and reaction. This generation of young artists- Buñuel, Lorca, Dalí- were viscerally in revolt against the forces of bourgeois conformism- church, state, army, landed aristocracy- that they were born into, and which surrealism aimed to subvert. They allied the wild joy and exuberance of youth to the transformative role of the artist and they worked alongside the tremor of the political and social movements sweeping through Spain. Their rebellion and the wider fight for freedom and justice that followed were eventually brutally crushed from without and subverted from within. The film follows this movement into freedom and back into repression. The film vibrates with the fun and humor and anarchic excitement of their early lives and moves with them to a deep kind of knowledge, despair, beauty, and eventually death; yet a legacy that lives on. The ending should not be without hope, for we know that Lorca’s poems live on.

The film is not a conventional period drama. The issues these men were confronting are incontestably modern.

Mr. Robert Pattinson

THE PRODUCTION:

We are excited about the new Hi-def Sony DVcam, which implies both an aesthetic and a way of working. It has exceptional flexibility and fluidity, and at the same time allows us a high-contrast “film” look, enabling us to achieve the deep shadows, bleached out highlights and acute and abnormal angles of vision found in Man Ray and other photographers of the time. Backgrounds are simple and plain: whitewashed walls; brickwork; stone; fabric; earth, cobbles, water. Like Lorca’s poetry, both simple and rich at the same time. This is a sensual film with luminous, magical and spacious landscapes, such as Dalí painted and Lorca wrote about and was rooted in.

Interspersed through the film is treated archive material and specially shot material which echoes the inner lives and obsessions of our characters, and which gives the movie breadth and space. The symbols of Lorca’s obsession: earth, moon, flowers, death, crucifixion. The images of a country in revolt: people swarming on the streets, flags, army, guns, blood. A kind of incidental imagery sparsely utilized that will feel as far as possible unconstructed. Shooting on DV gave us a much easier route to integrating this material in post-production. Modern editing systems and programs mean that simple compositing can be done in the edit suite.

Costumes were designed to be simple and stylish and reflect the uncluttered aesthetic of the film. We worked with a small crew and chose locations carefully to maintain the unfussy visual aesthetic without major construction or dressing, and minimize the number of sites to maintain a compact, focused way of working. Our lightweight crew also meant we could be mobile around more inaccessible locations, like the rocks at Cadaquès.

The fine screenplay shifts rapidly in tone from playful exuberance and fun, to longing, to tender beauty and to despair. The film follows these rapid movements of mood, yet is not overly intense; it felt important to retain a lightness of touch, not to overplay the fine hand we had been given, and let this wonderful story do the work.

Mr. Matthew McNulty and Mr. Javier Beltrán

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Salvador Dalí:

Salvador Dalí was born in Catalonia, Spain in 1904. He was named after his father and deceased brother and was told by his parents that he was a reincarnation of his brother. Salvador worshipped his mother and was devastated when she died from breast cancer when he was 16.

He attended the Residencia de Estudiantes where he met poet Federico García Lorca and filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Although he and Buñuel would later go on to work on the film “Un Chien Andalou” together it was García Lorca that he was truly close to. They two maintained a special friendship that had many elements of passion the whole time they were students.

Dalí’s time at school ended when he was expelled for telling his professors that none of them were good enough to judge and grade him. He was thrown out of the university. However, Dalí’s growing fame in the artistic community inspired him to try new ventures, leaving his old friends behind. Soon, Dalí was caught up in the world of celebrity, especially after he met his wife, Gala. The two were the tabloid couple of their time.

Dalí continued to work and paint throughout his life, although he was shunned by the surrealists for his political views. However, this did not affect the flamboyant Dalí. In his opinion, he was the reason for the surrealist movement.

By the time he died in 1989, Salvador Dalí and his art were known the world over. He achieved great fame during his Surrealist period, during which he created some of his most well know works, including “Persistence of Memory” and “The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table.”

Dalí is often credited with being one of the most well known members of the surrealist movement, although it has been said that he is also the one that sought out fame the most.

Federico García Lorca:

Federico García Lorca was born to an upper class family in 1898. When García Lorca was a child, the family relocated to Granada, Andalusia and it was there that García Lorca became involved in the local artist community. By the time he began attending the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid in 1919 he had already published his first book, entitled “Impresiones y paisajes.”

García Lorca befriended filmmaker Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. The three remained close during school and García Lorca and Dalí began a romantic affair that would last throughout their years as students. However, García Lorca’s growing depression and angst about his homosexuality soon caused a riff between himself and his friends. The debut of Dalí and Buñuel’s film “Un Chien Andalou,” which García Lorca determined to be about him, marked the end of their closeness.

García Lorca’s fame continued to grow. He became an accomplished poet and playwright. However, the Spanish Civil War loomed on the horizon and the military government did not appreciate García Lorca’s liberal way of thinking.

García Lorca returned to his family’s home in Andalusia only three days before the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, despite the fact that the area was known for being one of the regions most conservative. He and his brother-in-law were soon captured by the new regime and executed. Their bodies were dumped in an unmarked grave.

Although no mention of García Lorca’s work was allowed in Spain until 1953, today García Lorca is one of the country’s most beloved poets. A statue of him stands in Madrid’s Plaza de Santa Ana.

Luis Buñuel:

Luis Buñuel was born in 1900 in Aragón, Spain. He attended Madrid’s Resedencia de Estudiantes, where he met Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí. The three became close, but it was with Dalí that Buñuel collaborated to make his famous film “Un Chien Andalou.” The film—known primarily for the opening scene that simulates a human eyeball being slit by a razor—was considered groundbreaking in that it put the Surrealist movement on film and exposed it to a wide audience.

After the Spanish Civil War, Buñuel was exiled from Spain and went to work in Hollywood for a short time. He also worked at the Manhattan Museum of Modern Art, but was fired from that job after Salvador Dalí revealed that Buñuel was a Communist and an atheist. Buñuel never forgave Dalí for this and rebuffed all attempts at reconciliation.

Buñuel eventually settled in Mexico, where he continued to direct films. He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in history and Alfred Hitchcock called him “the best director ever.” Luis Buñuel died in 1983 in Mexico City.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Javier Beltrán:

Javier Beltrán makes his feature film debut with ‘Little Ashes.’ Javier Beltrán continues his growing career on the Spanish television series ‘Zoo’ starring with veteran Spanish actress Mónica López.

Robert Pattinson:

Heartthrob Robert Pattinson started acting on the stage at the age of 15. He first gained recognition as Cedric Diggory, the young man who woos the object of Harry Potter’s affection in the immensely popular ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.’ From there he was cast as another literary cult figure, the iconic vampire Edward Cullen in ‘Twilight’, the movie based on the acclaimed best-selling book series. With ‘Little Ashes,’ Robert continues to prove he is an actor not fearful of challenge. Robert’s films also include the comedy ‘How to Be.’ In 2005, at the age of twenty, Robert was named the British Star of Tomorrow by Times Online.

Matthew McNulty:

British actor Matthew McNulty has had a very diverse career since coming on to the acting scene in 2001. He appeared in the films ‘Love + Hate,’ ‘Control,’ and ‘Mark of Cain’ before starring in the comedy series ‘Honest.’ Matthew can be seen in ‘The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall,’ heard as the voice of Alex in ‘A Fox’s Tale,’ and 2009 also sees Matthew starring in ‘Looking for Eric’ a drama based on the life of soccer legend Eric Cantona.

Marina Gatell:

Most famous in Spain for her work in the hit series ‘Majora Absoluta,’ based on her movie of the same name, Marina shared the small screen with Javier Beltrán in the Spanish television series ‘Zoo’ and starred in the series ‘Lalola.’ She can be seen in the feature films ‘The Perfect Witness,’ ‘God’s Forgetten Town,’ ‘The Ungodly,’ and ‘Nosotros.’

Paul Morrison (Director):

Paul Morrison has a distinguished track record as a film-maker. His first feature film, ‘Solomon and Gaenor,’ was nominated for an Oscar and his second film ‘Wondrous Oblivion’ was released widely across the UK to much critical acclaim in the Spring of 2004. His other work as a director includes ‘Without Walls,’ ‘The Night Show–A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ‘Degas and Pissaro Fall Out,’ ‘From Bitter Earth,’ and ‘Unstable Elements.’

‘Little Ashes’ — Credits:

Directed by Paul Morrison
Written by Philippa Goslett
Produced by Carlo Dusi, Jonny Persey and Jaume Vilalta
Co-Producers: Philippa Goslett, Stewart Le Maréchal
Executive Producers: Stephen P. Jarchow, Paul Colichman, Debra Stasson, Luke Montagu
Director of Photography: Adam Suschitzky
Editor: Rachel Tunnard
Original Music by Miguel Mera
Production Designer: Pere Francesch
Costume Designer: Antonio Bellart
Make-Up & Hair Designer: Patricia Reyes
Casting by Mercé Espelleta
Sound Recordist: Juame Meléndez
Line Producer: Fernando Bofill

Running Time: 112 min. – 35mm film, in color, country of Origin: UK, filming location: Spain, the film’s spoken language: English, Rated R for sexual content, language and a brief disturbing image