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CHEAT WITH WHOEVER YOU CHOOSE. Fernando Trueba.

SÉ INFIEL Y NO MIRES CON QUIEN 1

I first met Andrés when I was 16 or 17 years old. I walked into his film distribution company and said that I was a journalist so that they would give to me some photos of the Buster Keaton films, which were being rereleased for the first time in Spain and distributed by Andrés. He says he remembers me.

The next time I met him, he was introduced to me by a mutual friend, Gonzalo Suárez, at the premiere of "Parranda".

Then, third time lucky; I met him again in 1985. I had finished my third film, "Sal Gorda", a year and a half before. At that time I had only produced two films. One Saturday afternoon the telephone rang and it was Andrés. He asked me if I was interested in writing a script for him.

"It depends", I told him.

" Are you familiar with the play: Sé infiel y no mires con quien?".

(Note: the original title in English is "Move Over, Mrs. Markham)

"Of course, who isn't?" The play had been on for ten years and was still showing. Mind you, all I had seen of it was the trailer showing in theaters in which some characters felt each other's asses and called that the Game of the Goose. I hadn't seen the play and in fact it had never crossed my mind to see it. It didn't matter though; Andrés would send me the text. I agreed and we hung up. Half an hour later someone knocked on the door. It was a messenger delivering the text. That was quick, I thought. I left the envelope on a table, unopened. I'd read it some other time. One hour later, the telephone rang again. It was Andrés.

"Have you read it yet?"

"No, I thought I'd read it over the weekend."

"Read it tonight and we'll see each other tomorrow morning."

We agreed to meet at the Café de Oriente the following day, on a Sunday morning. I got into bed and read the play. I didn't find it at all interesting.

"You aren't going to do that, right?" my wife asked me.

"Why not? Many movies we like are film adaptations of plays or novels that are rather bad. It could be a nice job for me."

The following morning Andrés and I got together.

"I'm prepared to write the script for you, but since I don't like the play, I'd have to make a lot of changes. Therefore, if I were you I'd give the job to someone else, because the work has been very successful, so why let an idiot like myself change it...?"

"Look, if I make a screen version of a work that has been so successful and we change everything and it is a failure, people will think I'm crazy. However, if we make a film that sticks to the original text and it's a failure then people will think I'm a fool. I'd rather be taken for a loony than for a fool."

"Does that mean I'm free to make whatever changes I see fit?"

"Except the title."

"It's a horrible title."

"Yes, but people are familiar with it. Besides, It cost me a fortune."

I started working on the script and, as is usually the case, I fell behind and didn't meet the deadline. Andrés started to suspect that I hadn't written anything, so one day he asked me to give to him whatever I had. I gave to him the first 90 pages of the script. I hadn't written the end yet. However, he liked it so much that he offered me to direct the film myself. And he wrote a draft of our first contract on a paper napkin. That marked the beginning of a long personal and professional relationship, which so far has lasted over 16 years.

In fact, the project wasn't crucial for Andrés, and yet behind it dwelt an eternal dream of his: the studio. Throughout all these years, that dream has been continuously dropped and taken up again. At the time, Gerardo Vera had built some wonderful set designs for the series "Los Pazos de Ulloa", by Gonzalo Suárez, and the mere thought that the material in question was going to be destroyed after the series was over, or recycled for other projects as usually happens in the studios, drove Andrés crazy. He looked for a quick project in which to use the set designs and recover his investment. And the project was none other than: "Sé infiel..." That is how I became involved with Andrés.

SÉ INFIEL Y NO MIRES CON QUIEN 3

The movie was really successful and represented Andres's return to the production of movies after having left it for several years to focus on distribution. Since that time, Andrés hasn't stopped. I finished the shooting on a Saturday and the following Monday, Almodóvar was filming "Matador".

Andrés didn't wait for the box office returns of "Sé infiel..." to hire me for his next project. While I was shooting, he had already asked me what else I was interested in doing after I finished. I told him the story of "El año de las luces" (The Year of Enlightenment), I said that was what I wanted to work on and that I wanted to write the script with Azcona. Said and done. When I finished filming, I'd work on the editing of "Sé infiel..." with Carmen Frías in the morning and in the afternoons I'd meet with Azcona to work on the new script.

Our third movie project was a little more complicated. I had given Andrés the novel by Christopher Frank "The Dream of the Mad Monkey," warning him that it wasn't a commercial subject. Andrés didn't believe me. "I'm sure it'll be okay". But when he had read it, he said:

"You were right. It is too depressing; nobody will go and see it."

"I told you."

For several months, Andrés kept offering me different projects, adaptations, etc... In May he said he was going to Cannes by car and asked me to go with him. That way we would have time to talk things over and try to decide what to do next. I went with him. In the car, when we crossed into France I think, he turned to me and said:

"You know what? The film you should do is "The Mad Monkey" because that is the one you want to do."

"You'd better think about it, it is going to be very difficult."

"All the better."

When we arrived in Cannes, he got in touch with Christopher Frank's agent, who came from Paris to talk with us. He watched a screening of "El año de las luces" and when we returned, Andrés already had the rights.

We wrote the script and Andrés put me on a plane for Los Angeles. I hadn't been on a plane nor crossed the Atlantic since my debut as a director (Opera Prima) in December 1981.

Andrés explained how things worked in Los Angeles, which he knows like the back of his hand. He stayed with me until we had got hold of the actor for the film.

I'll always be grateful to Andrés for having embarked on a project like that. It isn't exceptional of him; I've seen him do similar things many times, simply because he believes in someone.

SÉ INFIEL Y NO MIRES CON QUIEN 2

In the years that followed we coproduced "Belle époque", "Two Much" and "La niña de tus ojos" and, as I write this, I am already working on, "El embrujo de Shanghai" (The Shanghai Spell).

In those 16 years, while I have made seven films, he has produced sixty. Since our relationship is above all one of friendship, during that period I have calculated that we must have had dinner together about fifteen hundred times. That has enabled me to experience in first person and at close quarters the amazing adventure of somebody who has been capable of producing such a large number of films in a country like ours. One wonders what he would have done if he had a studio of his own, and It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up having one. Although in actual fact he already has it. Heisthe studio. His capacity for dreaming and turning his dreams into reality is what makes him the most unique and accomplished producer I have ever encountered and -from what I've read - has ever lived. Because what makes a producer special isn't the quantity of films he has produced, not even their quality. For me, what makes Andrés an extraordinary producer and an exceptional person is his capacity to challenge reality and defeat it, his triumphs, again and again, over what is politically correct, what is financially feasible or industrially possible, for the benefit of all those of us who have made films with him, those who have worked in them and, I hope, those who have seen his many films.

When I contradict him, he usually tells me that I am arrogant and vain. Well, as a matter of fact,heis the one who is arrogant and vain. Not only that, he is jealous, possessive, a big mouth, competitive, a manipulator, a seducer, ambitious, devious, whimsical, fussy, capricious. But there are three things nobody can ever say about him: no one can to say that he is a coward, no one can say he is boring and no one can ever say he is not generous.

FERNANDO TRUEBA.