"I'm closer to believing in Nick Cave than I am to believing in God."

BarcelonaShortly after filming with Laia Costa his Thin opera Five Little Wolves, director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Barakaldo, 1978) met with her producers to discuss new projects and explained that she wanted to explore the theme of religious vocation. She is not a believer, but when she was young, she met another girl who felt God's calling. "For me, having a secular upbringing, I found it fascinating and mysterious that someone could make a decision like this based on faith," she explains. The result of that interest has ended up taking shape in one of the season's films, the Catalan co-production Sundays, which arrives in theaters this Friday with the claim of the Golden Shell won at the recent San Sebastian Festival.

In the Basque director's film, a teenage girl in her final year of high school surprises her family with the news that she's considering entering a cloistered convent. Her father, struggling financially, seems to weigh the advantages of saving on college tuition and having one less mouth to feed, but her aunt—acting as a maternal figure following the death of the girl's mother—barely hides her shock and concern. She tries to prevent her niece from giving up everything life has to offer when she's barely begun to live it.

In Sundays We find the conflict between the individual freedom of a 17-year-old girl to decide what she wants to do with her life and the duty of an adult to protect a particularly vulnerable teenager, having lost her mother as a child, an open wound that has not been healed properly by an emotionally absent father. But the film also delves into the mystery of the religious vocation. "During the documentation process, speaking with girls who had heard the call, I was surprised that they told an almost loving story, but one of overwhelming love, as if their entire happiness depended on it," recalls Ruiz de Azúa, fascinated by hearing the word so often. love In the mouths of the nuns. "They were teenage girls, old enough to feel a more earthly love... But how could that compete with a supernatural and mysterious love unlike anything you've ever experienced before?" she says.

Start a conversation

From the beginning of the project, the director noted that the subject matter provoked visceral reactions among those around her. "The film is a mirror of the world in which all points of view are represented and defended intellectually and emotionally," says Ruiz de Azúa, who doesn't believe that "the baggage of education and values that viewers arrive with" is an impediment to enjoyment. Sundays"My intention is to invite you all to a conversation, but not a monologue or a pamphlet: I'm not interested in talking about things I'm clear about, but rather in asking myself questions," she says. And what questions are these? "Regardless of their religious sensibilities, I wanted the viewer to wonder if the protagonist's vocation is genuine, supernatural, or if there's an adult influencing and pushing her, but also to reflect on the fragility of families: there are very religious ones in which such a decision is also not well received."

Through the character of Aunt Maite (an excellent Patricia López Arnaiz), Sundays It also points out the contradictions of people with a more progressive bent and—at least on paper—respectful of the personal choices of others. "We're all very tolerant on the outside, but at home we're less so," Ruiz de Azúa points out. "Maite is a very interesting character. Progressive sensibilities always feel more comfortable in tolerance, but there comes a point where even she legitimately wonders that perhaps not everything is tolerable. So, if it's not everything that it is, it's not tolerable. The question, then, is whether they're dragging her to a convent, or if, as she says, she goes because it makes her happy."

Starting from Dreyer and Bresson

To give shape to SundaysThe director grew weary of watching religious films, especially those by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson, but "without wanting to imitate what they did, because it's inimitable." Ruiz de Azúa wanted to distance herself from religious films that take the existence of God for granted. "I didn't want to delve into this issue, but rather to explain what the characters feel, both those who believe in God and those who don't. And that's why I opted for a sober and austere cinematic language, which equalizes all the characters," she says.

A very significant choice is the theme Into my arms by Nick Cave, who sings to the young protagonist in his chorale: And don't believe in an interventionist God / But I know, darling, that you do (I don't believe in an interventionist God / But, darling, I know that you do.) "Music is very manipulative and I've always been very modest about using it, but here it's very beautiful because the heart functions as a soundtrack without being one, and it wasn't pushing in any direction, it just added a layer of depth to Cave's song of the song of the song of the song, which functions as an irrefutable example of secular spirituality. In fact, I'm closer to believing in Nick Cave than I am to believing in God."