Joan Frank Charansonnet: "Good Catalan wines have body and soul, like actors and cinema."

After more than thirty years of experience in front of and behind the camera, Joan Frank Charansonnet (The Valley of the Holy Cross, 1971) has found a long-standing role in Salvador Dalí. He had already played him in the theater and brought him to the cinema with The Angelus case, Dalí's fascination (2023), a film that explores the Empordà painter's obsession with Jean-François Millet's painting and which will now be released in more than seventy theaters in France.

One of the most important revelations ofThe Angelus case It happens in a French vineyard.

— Actually, the vineyards that appear in the film aren't in France, but at the Collbaix del Bages winery. We discovered a wine with Millet's painting on the label. We contacted them and discovered some wonderful people. They became our sponsors and took us to some century-old vineyards that had survived phylloxera and the Civil War.

How was your relationship?

— It was a very nice relationship. The winery's owner, Josep Maria Claret, is a wine scholar and wanted to recreate what you'd find in the French countryside. Everything was perfectly documented. He set up wooden cabins, created a special label to make it look like it was from the 1920s, added a wax stopper... We had a set design team, but he wanted to take charge himself. I was very grateful. He's a wonderful person and makes great wines.

Were you able to try any of them?

— I haven't had a drink in years. But that day I tried the Collbaix Singular de Ánfora Blanco [the best Macabeo in Catalonia according to the Catalonia Wine Guide 2022], and I was amazed. I said, "Now I get it."

Did the encounter between Millet's descendant and Dalí that appears in the film really take place in a vineyard?

— We know that this meeting took place. One night while partying at the Café de Oriente in Madrid, Dalí met a guy who knew Millet's direct grandson, and Dalí asked him to meet him. What we don't know is where it happened. I decided that it was in a vineyard.

Why did you make this decision?

— We discovered that Millet's descendant had died in the French countryside. We said: he must have lived his final years there; the French have a strong winemaking tradition, especially when they come from these intellectual families. If this man lives in the countryside, he must love wine incredibly… We brought all this to the meeting, and we wanted to bring that detail, which is Catalan wine, which here is also fictional.

And the content of the conversation?

— Millet's descendant tells him that all he knows is that he had been told that behind the basket of potatoes [of theAngelus] There was something else, originally, but I didn't know what it was. Dalí wrote that it was a uniform mass, which might remind him of a coffin, but that was never confirmed. What lies beyond that is fiction. These are the small liberties we take in films. In the opening of this sarcophagus, I saw the starting point of the journey that leads him to break through the past traumas he'd carried with him since he was a child.

There is a phrase attributed to Dalí that says, "A true connoisseur does not drink wine, but rather savors its secrets."

— And I completely agree. And that's what I can do, so to speak, now that I don't drink. Like all good things, they should be done once in a while and enjoyed. They should truly be enjoyed.

In Land of looms (2020) The snack of bread with wine and sugar appears.

— If parents did it now, we'd be screwed! Young people find it very funny, but older people look back on it with nostalgia. Ultimately, this wine gave you all the power of nature that grapes possess. Wine is an act of nourishment and it's also one of the greatest gustatory pleasures. There's a gastronomic culture that, at its core, is connected to popular culture and roots. And I think that's the important thing: not to lose one's roots and traditions.

Where do you see it?

— In the groups of giants and human tower builders, a wineskin is always present. One person won't finish the wineskin alone; they'll take a sip to gather strength. And that's the key: making good use of things, not overusing them, doesn't weaken you. There's a saying I always say: good Catalan wines have body and soul, like actors and cinema.

Are you more of an actor or a director?

— Actor. I really enjoy directing because I've been able to make projects a reality that, for one reason or another, I believe are necessary. Historical memory, for example, is present in all my films. One story I've written is that of my grandmother, who went through the Argelès camp and survived Mauthausen. But it requires a lot of money and is currently pending. In the meantime, I'm confident that the premiere ofThe Angelus case In France, it gave new life to my cinema and allowed me to open doors to work more in that country.

You worked in Russia for almost eight years.

— I went for love. When I arrived at the embassy, I saw they were looking for an actor, and an actor is an actor everywhere. I discovered the experience of becoming famous in a foreign country.

Did you drink a lot of vodka?

— Sometimes people imagine that people there eat with vodka, just like we eat with wine here, but that's not the case. Vodka is primarily for celebrations. And I can guarantee that when they drink it, they do so in large quantities.

In an interview, you said you made "authentically independent" films. Why "authentically"?

— Like so many other things, the concept of independent cinema We exported it from the United States. Early American independent cinema didn't work with subsidies, but rather with something more like patronage. In Catalonia, when we talk about independent films, we mean subsidized but low-budget films. I'm not against it, but they're different concepts. I've never worked with subsidies. In some cases, I've asked for them and been denied. And I've had to be very imaginative, find sponsors, and run campaigns with the public.

Is the cliché that there is more freedom without subsidies true?

— It's not a cliché. Currently, there's no censorship of ideas, fortunately, but there is a strange neo-censorship: if this topic isn't right now, this topic isn't right for a grant. Depending on who's in charge, there are topics that are better left uncovered, which creates another kind of artistic censorship.

How do you see the world of acting?

— I've been in the business for over thirty years. On the one hand, you see that, as the years go by, there are fewer and fewer roles: if before they called me fifteen times a year to play good roles, now they call me twice. But above all, what I see is that these days it seems like the only thing you have to do to be an actor is have an Instagram page with a lot of followers. It doesn't matter your experience or whether you've studied acting. One and a half million followers on TikTok are worth more than a million well-spoken lines.

But do you still think this job is worth it?

— I'm 54 years old. I have two frustrations in life: not having finished my history degree and not knowing how to play an instrument. But if I were born again, I would become an actor again. A historian and an instrumentalist, but an actor.