“In Spain we continue to have an inferiority complex with what is ours”

Next Friday, March 20, Prime Video premieres ‘Zeta‘, homeland spy thriller in which Mario Casas He plays a retired CNI agent who is forced to return to action. Dani de la Torreresponsible for films such as ‘The Unknown’ or ‘The Shadow of the Law’, directs a film with a powerful visual commitment and an enormous production scale with which he seeks to “break certain barriers” and put an end once and for all to some of the “inferiority complexes” that Spanish cinema still has.

During an interview with Europa Press, the Galician director acknowledged that making a spy film in Spain is “very complicated.”” why ““You play in a league that has already been won by the Americans and the British.” and its franchises. “However, The Spanish do it and it’s like a parody“he lamented.

“I believe that we have an inferiority complex in Spain, with ourselves“, stated De la Torre, who gave as an example that “in Spain you put a journalist who has integrity and you put him in a fiction and people say, this is not like that.” “Or a police officer, or a doctor… or any of us working,” he insists.

The filmmaker has pointed out that “there is always a bit of a stigma of ‘it’s not that good'” and that “here we have to be a complete disaster, everything has to be a botch“. However, he has claimed that “there are police officers who are elite, we have the CNI who are elite, we have the Civil Guard, we have doctors, we have journalists, lawyers of all kinds, physical engineers who are elite, like elite athletes.”

“WE NEED NEW LOOKS”

In this sense, De la Torre has stated that a film with the powerful level of production that ‘Zeta’ can boast is his “small contribution” to “try to break certain barriers” in the industry. “And I want to do it for ourselves, not only to remove our complexes and know that we can tell these types of stories, but also so that the new ones who come after us, the new directors who come there, can have access to making an adventure movie, about spies, about aliens… or whatever, that we need new perspectives“he reflects.

The director, who has mentioned names such as JA Bayona (‘The Impossible’, ‘Jurassic World: The Lost World’) or Jaume Collet-Serra (‘Jungle Cruise’, ‘Black Adam’) as examples of Spanish filmmakers who have already broken down those barriers with their films, has recognized that “it’s sad” that a film like this, loaded with action scenes, shootouts, chases and explosions, It is not going to be released in theaters. However, and aware that platforms condition, but also finance, this type of projects, De la Torre thanked Amazon Prime Video for betting on her.

“And what are we going to do? We are in the society we are in. Obviously, of course I feel sorry for. I would love for people to see it in a movie theater.. But it is what it is. It is an original. It is Amazon Prime betting on its platform and I am tremendously grateful because yes It wasn’t for them this movie couldn’t be made.“, highlighted the director who also pointed out that “there has to be an agreement between the platforms and the exhibitors, distributors” and has defended that “we can both survive and that I believe it is necessary and beautiful and I believe that they complement each other, it is not that they subtract from each other“.

At this point, the director has pointed out that “in the future there will be a much greater connection between cinemas and platforms” and that “a film goes to the cinema and you can see it in a cinema and then if you want to see it again at home or you want to see it at home, let the viewer decide“.

MARIO CASAS, A “SENSITIVE AND VULNERABLE” SECRET AGENT

De la Torre has stated that in ‘Zeta’, whose script he co-wrote with Oriol Paulo and Jordi Vallejo, they sought to create “a secret agent” who would be “the opposite of what we are used to seeing in fiction“. The film tries to create a protagonist “more normal” than the typical action heroes that usually populate the genre, presenting Casas’ character as “a more sensitive person, even somewhat vulnerable.”

The director explained that they wanted to “show a very human Zeta, very close and that any viewer could put themselves in his shoes, that it was not far from the spectators“In addition, he has indicated that they were looking for “deconstruct that whole part, a little archaic, of the heterosexual who rocks it” which has been seen so many times in action thrillers.

In addition to Casas, winner of the Goya for best actor for ‘No Matarás’ and nominated this year for the film ‘Very Far’, the cast of ‘Zeta’ is completed by names such as Luis Zaheradouble winner of the Goya for ‘El Reino’ and ‘As Bestas’, Mariela Garriga (‘Mission: Impossible – Mortal Sentence’, ‘When Nobody Sees Us’) and the also double winner of the Goya Nora Navas (‘Freedom’, ‘For black’).