The next August 19th lands on netflix ‘Alma’, a teen thriller about the search for identity that, according to those responsible, “uses the fantastic to talk about emotional issues.” Created by Sergio G. Sánchez (‘The Secret of Marrowbone’), this fiction is separated from other productions on the platform with a cast that is also young, such as ‘Elite’ or the supernatural ‘Stranger Things’with the hope of being able to serve as “catharsis for some people“and adding large doses of psychological terror to the mix.
“The depth and emotional journey that the characters take makes it different,” defends in an interview granted to Europa Press Mireia Oriol (‘Las del hockey’), who embodies the protagonist who gives name to a series that once again highlights the level of Spanish production. “Before, Spain was looking for references and now we are the ones who create them”, reflect.
In nine episodes of fifty minutes each, Netflix’s new thriller follows the story of Alma, a teenager with no memories after surviving a brutal bus accident in which almost all her classmates die. Returning home after a stormy recovery, the young amnesiac will have to put the pieces of the puzzle of her past back together to rediscover who she is and provide an explanation for the incident that changed her life while she is the victim of a severe trauma that causes night terrors and indecipherable visions.
“A society likes to be moved by what it sees, that it provokes things in you. We all have something that we put on television in the background to escape, but this series doesn’t let you do that,” says Javier Morgade (‘El knot’), who also adds that the terror and strong emotions of ‘Alma’ make it different of other audiovisual products: “Everything that seems to be scary becomes something that comforts“.
Along these lines, Sánchez, who also directs the fiction along with Kike Maíllo (‘Eva’), points out that “‘Alma’ has nothing to do with ‘Elite’ or ‘Stranger Things’“. “Being a series with many fantastic elements, has a deep emotional anchorage in the real. There aren’t many shows that scratch under the characters’ skin to the level that we do,” he notes.
And it is that, despite the supernatural content, ‘Alma’ starts from a personal experience of Sánchez, who suffered an accident 16 years ago “from which he miraculously came out alive“. The winner of the Goya in 2008 for best original screenplay for ‘El orfanato’ faced a tough rehabilitation after running into a sheet of ice on the road and falling to a train track at a height of 12 meters.
“EMOTIONAL TERROR” AS AN ESCAPE ROUTE
Now, this personal tragedy is the seed of the project “in which he has never left more of his things”: “Terror helps us get to know each other. The one that interests me is the one that talks about deeper things and does not stay on the surface. Outside, Spanish horror is highly valued and it may be precisely because of that emotional component that is not so common in other cinematographies”.
Under this term of “emotional terror” he also describes the Pol Monen series (‘Who would you take to a desert island?’), which emphasizes that “pretended and supernatural terror is a vehicle to talk about other things” such as sexual abuse, friendship, identity, mental health, loss, trauma, or grief. For his part, Álex Villazán (‘Caronte’) points out that “society needs to cling to stories and characters with whom it can identify in order to have an escape route“.
In addition to Oriol, Morgade, Monen and Villazán, the ensemble cast of ‘Alma’ is completed by the young performers Claudia Roset (‘Skam’), Nil Cardoner (‘Las del hockey’), María Caballero (‘El Ministerio del Tiempo’ ) and Milena Smit (‘Parallel Mothers’). The cast is completed by Elena Irureta, Marta Belaustegui, Josean Bengoetxea, Cándido Uranga, Katia Borlado, Ximena Vera, Celia Sastre, Laura Ubach, Raúl Tejón and Alejandro Serrano. In writing the script, Teresa de Rosendo and Paul Pen accompany Sánchez.