The film project, which started
about six or seven years ago, was based on the original treatment
written by Carlos L¢pez and Manuel Ángel Egea. I liked the idea
very much [...] We haven't softened the unfortunate things that
went on around the Movie Studios in Berlin while Spain was
embroiled in the Civil War. To sum up, the film looks at several
defeated men who leave Spain in 1938. They go to Berlin with a
certain air of triumphalism and are fascinated by the world around
them. In the film, I narrate the chronicle of that defeat, their
collision with reality. Deep inside, you ask yourself: what were
they going to do there? Well, the answer to that is that they were
going to survive, make their livings and carry on with their
profession as actors and filmmakers at a difficult time, even if
that meant making an "espa¤olada," a clich'd, stereotypical image
of Spain [...] The tone of the comedy becomes gradually bitter
along with the deteriorating mood of the characters. It is a
tragicomic movie. I increasingly enjoy mixing genres because they
resemble real life [...] I did a lot of research work for this
movie [...] I saw all sorts of things; many films from that period
and I also read all sorts of bibliographic material. But I always
knew that I didn't want to make a documentary but rather a feature
film based partly on reality and partly on imagination with which I
might achieve the goal of touching, moving the viewers.
FERNANDO TRUEBA.