Judith Colell: "This film was my last chance"

BarcelonaIt is estimated that between 1943 and 1945 more than 80,000 people crossed the Pyrenees fleeing Nazism. The people of the border villages who risked their lives to help these refugees are the focus of the Border, the drama that Judith Colell It premieres this Friday in cinemas. With a very solid cast led by Miki Esparbé, Maria Rodríguez Soto, Asier Etxeandia and Bruna Cusí, the film represents, in a way, Colell's return to Catalan cinema afterElisa K (2010).

The director herself –and president of the Film Academy– acknowledges that, in the last 15 years, she has directed short films, television films and even a commissioned film in the Dominican Republic (15 hours(of 2021), but Border It's something else entirely: a commercially ambitious project with a generous budget and high expectations. "It's a film that has forced me out of my comfort zone," Colell admits. "I've always made small, intimate social realist films, and suddenly this was a big production, one thriller with many characters and extras. After so many years without making films in Catalonia, I felt this was my last chance."

Border It follows the tensions in a small Pyrenean village in 1943 when Franco's border blockade leaves Jews trying to reach Spain at the mercy of Nazis patrolling the surrounding area to arrest and exterminate refugees. Faced with this situation, a customs officer with a Republican past (Esparbé) decides to take action to help the Jews, a movement that also involves his wife (Rodríguez), a Civil Guard officer (Etxeandia), and the village innkeeper (Cusí). They are very different people, each with their own reasons for getting involved. "They are multi-layered characters," Colell adds. "The main couple, seeing that they were losing the war, made a decision to save their children, but since then they have lived in absolute sadness. Suddenly, helping these Jews makes them feel alive and allows them to reconnect."

The story of Border It's a work of fiction, but inspired by documented historical events. In fact, the two screenwriters (Gerard Giménez and Miguel Ibáñez Monroy) got the idea after reading an interview with a customs officer who helped many fugitives from the Nazis. The film comes shortly after Núria Cadenes' book Who saves a lifeThe latest Proa Prize-winning novel tells the story of a real network of people who saved hundreds of fugitives from Nazism during World War II. "We still have many stories from the 20th century to learn, and some are fascinating, especially from the Civil War and the post-war period," Colell reflects. "Moreover, it's necessary to tell them, because it seems that people don't remember our history; one in four young people says they wouldn't mind living under Franco."

Colell also draws an explicit parallel between the Jews fleeing Nazism and the current refugee crisis in Europe. "The film acts as a mirror to our present, where there are also people trying to escape war, hunger, and genocide, and, as before, there are people who help them and others who criminalize them," the director recalls. "As an Angolan poet once said, no one sets sail unless they believe it will be safer than..."

Tribute to Villaronga

In the end credits, the director dedicates the film to Agustí VillarongaIn fact, it's not difficult to find connections with the films of the director of Black bread, from an interest in moral ambiguities to a concern that the characters speak in the dialect that corresponds to them – in the case of Border, the Pallarés language – or the presence of the actress Bruna Cusí (Uncertain glory) and the costumes by Mercè Paloma, Villaronga's regular costume designer. "The film is a total tribute to Agustí, who was one of my best friends," says Colell. "I loved him very much and I still do. He was a master of period films and taking characters to dark places." The darkness of Border This is most evident in the treatment of the landscape, which gives the Pallars mountains an oppressive feel. The director knows the area well, having spent her summers there since childhood, and understands that the imposing nature of Pallars can feel "claustrophobic and threatening" to some, a sensation that "helps to understand what crossing the mountains meant to those people." Colell is already preparing two new projects in Catalonia: another period film that will be "a tribute to the Republican teachers who founded the free schools" and an animated film adapting David Cirici's children's book. MossYears of frustration and struggle to launch unsuccessful personal projects are now behind them: "Although Elisa K It went very well [Jury Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival]. For many years, making small, auteur films was very difficult. That's why I felt that if I didn't do it right... Border"Perhaps I wouldn't do any more." The challenge was significant, especially given her inexperience with projects of this scale. In fact, Colell is the first woman to direct a film with the special €1.5 million grant from the Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises for Catalan-language projects "with a market focus." "I hadn't thought about it, but I was the first, I was the first, we don't usually have access to such large budgets," she points out. "But women don't always have to make small, intimate, character-driven films; we can also make large-format films, mixing the thriller"...action and period films."