Etorkizuna = El futuro = The future

Image: Still from High Life, Claire Denis (2018).

A podcast of dialogues with directors in the process of making their next film.

THE FUTURE is a of dialogues with directors in the process of making their next film. The Future is a podcast created by Tabakalera in collaboration with the Elías Querejeta Film School. 

We’d like them to tell us what lies in the space between one film and the next (a space which people rarely talk about): how they write their script; which images and sounds awaken their desire to get back behind the camera; the first casting and filming plans; how they prepare the locations; doubts and certainties; changing references and recurring notes that help them to keep working.

In our TALK CINEMA Focus, we invited directors into the Tabakalera cinema to discuss the creative processes behind a film that had already been completed and premiered (a sort of flashback exercise; discussing something that had already taken place and been turned into a film). In THE FUTURE, we approach things from the other side, taking a journey through time into a world that hasn't yet materialised: film, images and sounds that don't yet exist but which we can already begin to imagine. 

If all goes well and the production plans are realised, with a bit of luck the result will be a film that will be released in cinemas and which we can then discuss in another way. However, what we’re interested in is that more fragile and flexible time beforehand, when all the film’s possibilities are still open and when decisions are taken that will define what we later see on screen. 

It’s a place where talking about cinema is still rather like telling someone about a dream. 

Whereas TALK CINEMA took place once a month in our cinema as part of our regular programme, THE FUTURE will take the form of a monthly podcast until such time as Cinema 1 comes back into regular use with guest speakers. The programme will have four chapters: June, July, August and September.

Final note: THE FUTURE is a sound series. It can’t be any other way. In the first chapter, Javier Rebollo cites the Portuguese writer and poet Pessoa when he said that to see, one has to close their eyes. This is exactly what this series is about. To see these films which don’t yet exist, let’s close our eyes. 

It’s an act of desire.

An exercise of the imagination.

This is cinema that gradually takes shape as we listen. 

This is the future, and the way in which all yet-to-be-filmed movies begin.

Director: Víctor Iriarte.

Original music: Mursego.