“The filming of Velintonia, 3 had a claustrophobic touch, parallel to what Alexander experienced.”

Despite being an almost magical place, an unseen witness and hero of the country’s history and its poets, the property has been closed, and has been in a practically abandoned state since the death of Alexandre’s sister in 1986. Until last April, it was acquired by a Madrid community to transform it into House of poetry in 2027. For this reason, now that this “temple” of the enormous Lebanese cedar has come back to life, the documentary film signed by Villa (screenplay and direction), which will be shown on Tuesday at the… Seville European Film Festival (After its world premiere in Malaga) and competing in the Andalusian talent section in the 51st edition of Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival Before its release in theaters on the 28th of this month. Philintonia 3, the filming of which was subjected to the vicissitudes of negotiations for its recovery, will become an audio-visual testimony to what those four decades of silence were like.

And how some of those who shared conversations and coffee with the penultimate Spanish Nobel Prize winner later found a place to stay. “I found the condition of the house and its history incredible Members of the generation 27 to newer. It is a symbol of community, and has been a place to come together and create. I was amazed by the effects left by all that time. “His bed with writing on it, the light that came in through the window… From a cinematic point of view, the ability to talk about a character through those traces caught my attention,” the director says of the genesis of the project, in which he also used the vast correspondence that Alexander kept with his colleagues. “Letters were the technology of the time,” he says.

The “Velintonia 3” cast brought together some of their youngest, now in their 80s, for this film. Latest Vicente Molina Foa, Guillermo Carneiro, Marcos Ricardo Barnatan, Antonio Colinas, and Jaime Siles Who, with their memories and readings by actors Antonio de la Torre, Ana Fernández, Mona Martínez and Manolo Solo from writings and letters from Alexandre himself, Federico García Lorca, Neruda, Miguel Hernández or Carmen Conde, reconstruct the history of the building. “We suggested it be a one-on-one meeting, which is Alexander’s favorite way to meet people. But before standing in the living room to talk, we asked them to go home and forget about the cameras, and this reaction was very strong,” recalls Javier Vila.

Those who were already there at some point, and those young people who participated in the performative dimension of the documentary: Raquel Lanceros, Juan Gallego Pinot, María Alcantarella, Izara Patrez, Marina Casado, Andres Paris, and Laura Rodriguez. “For example, Marina Casado said that she was a rather lonely girl, and that her gang was made up of 27 poets, and these poets were her friends,” explains the director, who also tells about the team’s own feelings during filming. “She had a claustrophobic point. We stayed for three weeks and it was parallel to what Vicente was experiencing. “We even knew the exact time the sunbeam entered the window.”

Despite this isolated atmosphere – the Nobel Prize winner practically lived in isolation due to his health problems – meetings in his library or living room were a source of happiness. “He had a very open personality, love was one of his main themes and he understood friendship as the most perfect form of love. Moreover, due to his illness, he took advantage of his friends’ visits to see through their eyes. He had this innate spirit, and this is what I think would now be called a network, because he also connected all the generations,” Vela develops.

The documentary (produced by Surnames Narradores Transmedia and MLK Producciones, in co-production with TVE, with the participation of Canal Sur, with the support of ICAA and the Council of Andalusia, and in collaboration with the Seville City Council and the Malaga Provincial Council) presents the character of the writer who, despite having received the highest award in world literature, is unknown to many Spaniards. “He was bisexual, and at the time that had nothing to do with the current situation. “That’s why I think it’s more difficult to access it, its power and its effectiveness when you’re inside him, in his inner world, whether at home, behind closed doors, or in his mind at the point of his creativity,” says Villa, which also has to do with not acknowledging the poet’s political position for him. “He had his beliefs, but he did not close his doors. His life had no milestones or a memorable headline. He was Lorca that end of the civil war, or Miguel Hernandez, or Alberti who went to the barricades, but Alexandre did not.

When the fratricidal struggle was over, No. 3 Via Valentonia (it was Alexander himself who achieved Castile’s acceptance of the term Wellingtoniafirst collected in the RAE Dictionary, in 1970, in its nineteenth edition) has once again become a cultural centre, a “beacon”. “It was an island where you could talk and think, a haven of freedom,” writer and critic Rosa Pereda says at the beginning of the film.

Fela speaks of the choral spirit the film possesses Original music by Isabel Royan. The composer is another character, because throughout the documentary she collects the sounds of the house. “From a cinematic point of view, it was also interesting. “When you spend a lot of time at home, you end up knowing where every sound comes from.” The soundtrack, of course, also includes the Maga song that sparked its creation, “An Author’s Documentary.” And the piano that Federico García Lorca played several times in the room where he read his “Dark Love Sonatas” for the first time.

“Every shot, every slide we recorded, every broken door, every window, was a kind of silent condemnation, I didn’t want to make too obvious a claim,” emphasizes Villa about a documentary that he says would feel very satisfying if he could make someone see it and get closer to the work of the poet from Seville by birth, although he is from Malaga at heart. In fact, the reference to the city of Costa del Sol in poetry guides the journey of this Villa idea: “I will see everything on my return, as soon as we meet in Chimera Philintonia. Kemeri Because Philintonia goes to the sea, she goes to the sea for a long time.

When asked who the real hero of this film is, the director was clear: Vicente Alexandre, even though his life was inseparable from that house. “For me, this is not just a film: it is an artistic and social work that seeks to recover the Chimerica Velintonia in the face of its decline, remembering that it is not enough to protect the building; It must be restored to its status as a legend, a living place that generates thought, just as Alexander dreamed of it. “The film serves as a warning, as a trigger for awareness of what was and what could be,” the author states in his notes. Or as Rosa Pereda herself says in her speech: “As long as we remember him, he will never die completely.”. The house of poets was, above all, a house of friendship.