Vicent Monsonís: "Making independent films from Valencia is not profitable"

The Valencian screenwriter and film director Vicent Monsonís (Valencia, 1968) grew up in a working-class family. "My mother worked incredibly hard to earn her teacher's salary. It was a modest wage to raise four children on her own," he recalls. That experience shaped his understanding of money: "Money is a vehicle, not an end in itself. The goal has never been to earn a lot or accumulate it, but to use it as a means to achieve other things." In fact, everything depends on your aspirations: "If your goals are simple, it's easier to achieve them. I don't want to buy a Maserati because I don't see any substance in it," he asserts. "When you're ambitious for the superfluous, it's greed," he concludes.

At home, education was always a priority. At just 16, he went to study in the United States on a scholarship: "There I wrote and filmed my first short film. I had access to audiovisual equipment that my high school in Burriana, obviously, didn't have." That experience culminated in winning first prize at the California Video Festival, an award that helped him steer his professional career toward the communications sector.

He studied journalism and, to support himself in Barcelona, ​​worked as an illustrator. Shortly after, he returned to Valencia to work for the country's public television station, then Canal 9: "I had a fantastic contract with a very good salary." However, the change in political leadership led to modifications in a program that was successful: "After three years doing the children's program, I had a major falling out with management." "I left with an anxiety attack. All my colleagues told me I was crazy to leave a fixed salary," he adds. In fact, he has never had a permanent contract again. "For me, the work I do has always been much more important than the money I can earn from it," he adds. Monsonís has always dedicated himself to writing and directing his own projects from Valencia, a political decision: "I knocked on the doors of every production company to sell a script. They told me they weren't interested, that making this kind of film was a disaster. But they all offered me screenwriting work." So, he opted to set up his own production company: "I raised over 60 million pesetas in private funding, an enormous amount." Two years later, he had already repaid that money to the Valencian companies that were committed to culture: "It's thanks to the big business owners that I've been able to build practically my entire career as a filmmaker." "Making independent films from Valencia isn't profitable," he explains. Distributors, he asserts, don't trust films shot in a language other than Spanish. Although the Valencian Community allocates a significant amount of public money to film production, Monsonís criticizes the fact that these resources end up financing Spanish cinema: "To be considered 'from here,' more than 50% of the production should feature Valencian actors and actresses telling our stories, set in our territory."

"The system is configured in a way that excludes Valencian cinema; we must invent our own way of working," he explains. This is what he has attempted with The barbarian invasionThe latest production, released last December, has a budget of nearly one million euros, insufficient to qualify for funding from the Ministry of Culture, which requires at least 1.3 million euros.

The difficult promotion

Monsonís points out that cinema has two aspects, the cultural and the industrial, and "reconciling both is complicated." He laments that The barbarian invasionDespite its very positive reception, the film doesn't compete on a level playing field: "I don't have the financial resources to promote the film like Spanish production companies do." However, in the second week of January, it was the sixth most-watched Spanish film in the country, despite being shown in only four theaters in the Valencian Community and one in Catalonia. Monsonís also questions the promotional model based on major international awards: "The Oscars are a top-tier advertising tool for American cinema. We can't replicate that format." Instead, he advocates for a different way of measuring success: "Perhaps we should celebrate that two films were made in Valencian last year, instead of competing against each other." Now, the director already has new projects in mind, including writing a four-episode miniseries set in the same era.