Marc Recha: "The monks of Poblet gave us the keys to their house."

BarcelonaAfter removing the thorn from roll one thriller with Wild RouteMarc Recha (Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1970) has been able to make another dream come true: to shoot a film in the Poblet monastery, the first to be filmed entirely there. Centaurs of the night, which opens this Friday, is a black and white experiment – the photography is by Peter Zeitlinger, collaborator of Herzog and Ferrara – starring a cast of mostly blind actors, one of the most radical and free films by the director of Paz and her brother.

What is the origin of this unique film?

— This stems from a fever during the COVID era, when we were confined. Bavèar, who is a very important blind Slovenian photographer.

What inspires you about Bavèar?

— He is one of the first to bring to the table the creative dialogue that arises between the way blind people and others perceive their environment. Just as I observe my surroundings, a blind person also has their own perspective.

For a few years now, you've also been somewhat on the fringes of the film world.

— Yes, more and more, and I feel very comfortable. And as we get older, we increasingly look at the world with perplexity. I've always been on the margins and I'll continue to be there. First, because there's silence. It's about being able to observe and build. Not everything has to be productive and have an economic return. I make very artisanal cinema, which means that in my films I do everything, from writing the script to bringing coffee to designing the poster. Still, it's important to work with people, because cinema is a great collective adventure.

The pretext is that the Italian Cistercian monks who refounded the monastery in 1940 had hidden some relics.

— Yes, it is a fantasy that I allow myself, because it is true that the monks arrived after the war and collaborated very actively in the restoration, but the rest is a kind of macguffin, a fable in which I imagine that those monks had stolen some relics and taken them to Poblet, since the monastery had been looted during the confiscation.

Alex (Lluís Soler) and Julien (Mahamadou Dambelleh), who would be the two protagonists, are accompanied by a blind photographer who seems inspired by Evgen Bavèar.

— Yes, in fact, Evgen was supposed to play him. I wrote the role for him, but he said no, that he was too old. But he recommended me to a friend of his who's also blind and is a climber, photographer, publicist... And I really like working on films with people like him, who'd never been in front of a camera before.

And how do you direct a blind actor?

— It's not about directing, but rather about having intuition and the ability to choose the right people for each shoot. And I don't choose them for their physical appearance, but for their character. We're always making groundbreaking films: we shoot in the place where we also sleep and live together, so you have to value the person's character as well. Once you put these pieces on the board, it all works.

Almost all the actors in Centaurs of the night They are blind, but the main character is played by a sighted actor, Lluís Soler. Why?

— Because his character is very shameless, but also ambiguous. Is he blind or not? The premise is that in the film all the men are blind and the women are not, but there's a moment when you don't know if they're looking or not. And Lluís was a great fit for us to play with this ambiguity.

And where does the character of Julien, who plays Mahamadou Dambelleh, come from?

— It's very funny, Mahamadou. One day, while researching the film, I saw a TV program where a 16- or 17-year-old boy appeared, saying, "I'm black, I'm blind, and I'm the next president of the Generalitat." He also said he was studying political science and was training for the Paralympic Games. So I went to Olot to talk to him and his mother.

By the way, how did the monks of Poblet receive the proposal to make a film in the monastery?

— They gave us the keys to their house. Without the monks' complicity, we wouldn't have made the film. And they didn't even read the script. They are the most generous and humble people I've ever met, with extraordinary depth and wisdom.