Iván Morales: "We are a country that does not dare to talk about class struggle."

BarcelonaA waitress recovering from an accident while finishing a Pasolini-esque documentary about heartbreak; a trap musician taking refuge in the jingles advertising; dealer turned hospital orderly and in love with a former addict hooked on the memory of a memorable night of partying. They are the four lost souls of'Breakfast with me, which opens this Thursday, the first film he directs Ivan Morales (Barcelona, ​​​​1979), known above all for his work as a playwright and theater director. With Anna Alarcón, Álvaro Cervantes, Iván Massagué and Marina Salas, Breakfast with me X-rays the emotional fragility of four characters adrift, but also their resilience and their capacity for transformation. A portrait with generational touches that Morales films with the intensity of debutants who leap into the void without looking back.

He began writing the script forBreakfast with me Twenty years ago. Why did it take so long to become a film?

— There are times when the spark appears at a given moment, but you must mature the ideas. When I wrote Breakfast with meAt twenty-five, I had a relatively promising career in film. I had sold a feature-length script at 19 and then wrote I call it the least, which won three Goyas. He had also directed a couple of short films that had done well at festivals. That first version ofBreakfast with me It arose from a need to represent the people of Barcelona of my generation, because the only way I saw them represented was in stories written from Diagonal up, with condescension or misery, with no room for our emotional everyday life. I wanted to talk about how working-class people love, and not focus on economic precariousness; rather, on overcoming emotional precariousness.

And what happened?

— We knocked on every door, but we ran into the crisis of the art-house cinema of the time, which devastated middle-class films. This caused me to bassoon very big, because I was approaching 30 and felt like I was heading down a path that was going nowhere. So I decided to do a very practical and economical play to get that frustration out, which was I know of a place, and it worked so well that it gave me a career as a theatre director. And when I adapted Breakfast with me In the theater, producer Roger Torres asked me if I would like to make a film out of that story.

In these twenty years, your generation has grown up, and so have the characters in the script. How has this changed the story?

— They used to be in their twenties, and now they're in their early thirties and late forties. But I didn't revise the old script too much. I've changed, but the subject matter and the spark haven't. I still felt the need to write a love letter to the friends who taught me to love. And I've always tried to make a film of its moment, of 2025. I've made an effort to leave behind the dead weight of the past, because what interests me about the creative act is engaging with the present. And my perspective has also changed, which I'd say is now more tender toward the characters. In the play, I punished them a little more.

I was talking earlier about the working-class way of loving. What's it like?

— Let's see, from a place of alienation, it's difficult to connect with others. Class alienation is accompanied by economic precariousness, learned helplessness, and a lack of legitimacy. It's the feeling of not being good enough to have a social and emotional space. When you're working class, self-esteem is seriously threatened. And if you don't have self-esteem, everything is more difficult. I have a friend who doesn't accept that she's working class; she wants to be the most killer And neoliberal, faster than the market, and if she can't afford a house or apartment, she feels it's because she's doing something wrong. And it's no coincidence that she also finds herself at odds with her relationships, because there's a disconnect between her and her surroundings.

The characters ofBreakfast with me They're disconnected from their past. With the music they made when they were young, the lifestyle they led... And they're not that old either.

— Because everyone has to shed their skin from time to time, even if they don't want to. Feeling heartbreak means that the pillars that once supported you no longer do. You have to accept that the identity you had built for yourself no longer works. Heartbreak is a humble process that involves saying goodbye to who you were. And it's painful to say goodbye to parts of yourself that seemed indispensable to your identity. There are moments when you understand that only by looking straight into your wound can you find the light that will give you the desire to keep walking, but the normal thing in this world is to look elsewhere, to escape. The characters inBreakfast with me They can no longer look away, they must face themselves... And they must look at themselves with admiration and value their ability to not give up, no matter what happens.

Does today's cinema handle these types of characters better than it did twenty years ago?

— In general, We are a country that does not dare to talk about class struggleIt's a taboo. And if we collectively don't dare, it's normal for most of our cultural experiences and stories to be aspirational. nepo babies, which was a topic a year ago, in the end it all remains in the puppy of who is the son of whom, and not the structural question of why if you study at certain schools you have a secure future. And sometimes there's a certain amount of imposture in cinema when it comes to filming, for example, how poor people live. Making a film is so expensive that, even if you're working class, it forces you into a system where things are done in a...

Does making movies declassify you?

— Yes, exactly. First of all, because there's no class consciousness. Enric Auquer once told me that in the world of culture, the secret is for people to know that you can act poor without being poor. If they see you poor, Enric was saying, they think long and hard before doing anything with you, because poverty is contagious. Culture is a very classless environment. But I'm very stubborn, and I still live in the Raval because I don't want my privilege as an artist to affect my perspective. And I've done many commissioned works, but in the end, if I think about it, most of the time I've made the decision more based on what I needed to convey than what could bring me more success and money. Part of my need as an artist was to remember where I come from or who my friends are, the people who have helped me build myself.

The film's ending seems to bet on a relationship model that goes beyond the classic pairings of couples, another way of being together and loving each other more collectively.

— The ultra-capitalist cities we live in only offer us a space of spiritual relaxation associated with the normative couple, but this is spiritual suicide, because we are social and tribal animals and we must find a way to live together. A character like Salva will not have read The desire to change of bell hooks, but she realizes that living love from possession and exclusivity doesn't work. And this seems brave to me; she doesn't need to paint her nails and say dear; He may not be a deconstructed man, but he's a guy who does what he can, and does it well.

Oriol Pla's character says that life should be lived "as if it were a hit of four minutes." Have you ever felt that way?

— Every day. Every time I log on to Instagram I'm looking for this, the high to hear it.

Some time ago he participated in a film that seems to define that state of mind: Hot milk, a delirium directed by Ricardo Bofill.

— But Hot milk it was not one hit of four minutes. When you make a film like Hot milk You have the feeling of failing. I made it because I had a son and I had to bring money home. But I must say that Ricardo Bofill seems like a very handsome guy and that he had a very sincere dream of making films, but they didn't let him make his movie. It's true that the film he wanted to make might have been worse, we'll never know. But at least it would have been his. Now, I'm proud of having made Hot milkFirst, because I have something fun to tell. And also because there I met Quique Sanfrancisco, may he rest in peace, who is one of the people I've most blown away on a set. He was so much heavy that gentleman.