The list of films shot in whole or in part in Granada is very long. Many do not know, but in “Goose Soup”, one of the masterpieces of Marx brothers, the city of Sylvania is actually Loja. The Sierra Nevada becomes the Ural Mountains for “Doctor Zhivago”. Steven Spielberg For Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he turned the Guadix train station into the Iskenderun train station in Turkey. All this not to mention others that even have the name in the title: “Death in Granada” and “Everything is possible in Granada”.
Now, fortunately, two of the three Spanish films aspiring to the Hollywood Oscar have close ties to the province of Granada. The three shortlisted films from our country are The Snow Society. Juan Antonio Bayona; ‘Close your eyes’ Victor Erice; and “20,000 species of bees”, by Styliz Urresola. The first two use natural decorations from the province of Granada.
The Snow Society recreates the tragedy of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. This is told in various books – particularly the one in which he wrote Pablo Vierzi, from which the film takes its name – and in another film that was quite successful, They Live!, one of the keys to survival for 29 of the 45 inmates was resorting to cannibalism. They ate the deceased companions.
For three months, the Bayonne team recorded on a set created for the occasion at the top of the train station Pradollano at almost 2,500 meters, although there are also places as wonderful as the Mares Lagoon near the Veleta peak, at over 3,000 meters.
As for Cerrar los ojos, it’s the return of Víctor Erice after a three-decade absence. The premiere took place in Cannes Film Festival and it was moving to see the director and his very young muse together again after such a long time, Ana torrent with whom he shares the on-screen spotlight Manolo Soto and Jose Coronado.
From Cannes to Hollywood
The film’s connection to Granada is even stronger as Erice conceived it in the coastal community of Granada Gualchos Castell de Ferro, where his partner worked. The city council emphasized this in a press release, in which they expressed their “pride” to be part of the filmmaker’s filmography.
In a way it’s a film about cinema, because it evokes the story of two fellow actors and directors. It’s about the passage of time and human relationships calm coastal landscape that of the beaches of Gualchos, the name of the municipality where Castell de Ferro is located.
In addition, there are works by established directors. Bayona, again recording in Spanish, has won Hollywood with The Impossible, The Orphanage and the remake of Jurassic World, while Erice’s filmography highlights include The South and The Spirit of the Beehive.
