Albert Serra premieres the latest film by the Filipino master of contemplative cinema

GironaThis Friday, July 3rd, arrives in theaters Magellan, the new film by Filipino Lav Diaz, one of the most radical directors of contemporary auteur cinema. The film, starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, narrates, from the perspective of the colonized peoples, the adventures of the Spanish expedition to the East, which was led in 1519 by Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães. It is an international co-production, winner of the Seminci of Valladolid in 2025, which counts with the participation of the producer by Albert Serra, Andergraun Films.

Andergraun's involvement in the project was initiated by the Portuguese producer Joaquim Sapinho, a regular collaborator on Serra's films. During the creative process of the work, the Catalan production company worked to provide everything necessary (and possible) without interfering with Diaz's work: "The goal is to help in the same way I would like them to help me," states Serra, who, as a director who also produces, fiercely defends the absolute autonomy of the filmmaker: "The directors we work with are over 50 or 60 years old, people who know perfectly well what they have to do. The current trend is for the director to be the most useless person on the team, but we do the exact opposite, because we are indebted to auteur cinema," he declares.

In the case of Magellan, Andergraun, who was not economically leading the project, provided a large part of the technical team, headed by the director of photography Artur Tort, who also took charge of the editing. Diaz, a master of contemplative cinema, often films very long takes using the sequence shot and black and white, but in this historical epic, with Tort, the Filipino filmmaker recovers color with images of a twilight and satiny aesthetic of great visual strength.

Collaborate with renowned directors

Magallanes is not the only film outside of Serra's filmography that Andergraun has co-produced. They already financed, for example, Misericordia (2024), by Alain Guiraudie, they have just premiered the children's fable Roques roges (2025), by Bruno Dumont, at the Cannes Film Festival, and they are already preparing a new collaboration with the Austrian Ulrich Seidl. Certainly, Serra's team's contacts are always with interesting creators, in artistic harmony with the experimental and transgressive proposal of the filmmaker from Banyoles. Regarding Diaz, Serra argues: "It starts from small events that end up connecting with great historical episodes, and make history intertwine with intimacy and daily life. Without giving lessons or moralizing, it reflects the colonial and political history of the Philippines, with its own perspective, without prejudice, demystifying historical narratives".

The participation of actor García Bernal, who had been in talks with Diaz for many years to finalize the project, gives the film a lot of substance. "He is very intelligent and has a special gift for languages," comments Serra.

"I would like this cinema to be seen in our country too"

Albert Serra founded Andergraun Films at the beginning of his career together with Montse Triola, an indispensable right-hand woman in the gestation of all his films. The artistic duo considers that international co-productions are a condition sine qua non to gather more funding and help distribute the film in festivals and cinemas. Without Andergraun's presence, Magallanes might not have had distribution in Spain. "One reason for producing is to say that I would like this cinema to also be seen at home," corroborates Triola, who, regarding the spirit of Andergraun, adds: "Our philosophy is a bit like that of the Nouvelle Vague, we are creative producers who give the director absolute freedom within the possibilities of the project. If we love a director and the story seems interesting to us, we try to make the film exist".

The entire Andergraun team is used to a free and chameleonic way of working, without preconceptions and with an open mind, capable of adapting to volatile needs of films that are built on the go. "As often happens with Albert, in Lav he had an initial idea of what he wanted to shoot, but during the shoot the film ended up being different. This is familiar to us and all the changes, even if they are sometimes complicated, are made for the good of the film," argues Triola.

An old ship in the port of Cadiz

In addition to contributing to the technical team, Andergraun took on the management related to the historic ship that was to recreate the expedition, key in many fragments of the film. "We managed to film on a replica ship that functions as a traveling museum that sails around the world with its own sailors", recalls Triola. They filmed in the port of Cadiz, but there were also many other fragments in the Philippine jungle and on the high seas. "We had a correct budget, but it was a period film and very complex, so the filming was extremely complicated", concludes Triola.

The premiere of Magallanes coincides with the final stage of the editing process of Out of the World, Albert Serra's new film about the geopolitical disputes between Russia and the United States, which is expected to be released next year. "I can now say that it will be great, unique, and like nothing anyone has ever seen before", advances the director, who has just returned from Shanghai, where he participated in a conference on the uses of artificial intelligence in audiovisual creation alongside director Bi Gan, author of Resurrection.