Malaga, Mar 16 (EFE).- The filmmaker Agustí Villaronga (1953-2023) was a person “with a very big heart who welcomed the most vulnerable, because he was also vulnerable and there was a mirror effect,” says actress Bruna Cusí, who shot “Uncertain Glory” (2017) under his orders.
Cusí has participated this Thursday in the tribute to Villaronga offered by the Malaga Festival together with the actresses Nuria Prims and María Barranco and the producer Cesc Mulet.
The interpreter recalled that the late director opened “the doors of the world of cinema” for her and how working with him felt “validated as an actress and touched by a magic wand.”
“He took care of the homeless, and I was in a time when I felt helpless. It is important that a person tells you that you are good and that you have a heart, ”he adds.
Nuria Prims, who also participated in “Uncertain Glory”, agrees that “he took care of those who saw him as frailty and made everyone who knew him feel special”, with a personality that was a combination “of a lot of darkness and a lot of light”.
“Those of us who have come into his life are touched, because he was a person who gave a lot to everyone but did not tie himself to anyone,” says Prims, who adds that those who knew him well know “that he had a lot of character and that he made people laugh.” , but it also made tremble.
María Barranco, who filmed “99.9” (1997) with him, assures that Villaronga “was bright and an angel, very funny and with a great sense of humor, because there were times filming that he interrupted takes because he laughed.”
“He had his character, but he liked the actors, because there are other directors who, if they could, would work with cartoons”, highlights Barranco.
But the one who knew him the most, since the 70s, was Cesc Mulet, who produced the film “El vientro del mar”, with which Villaronga triumphed at the 2021 Malaga Festival.
“Just after Malaga they detected cancer,” recalls Mulet, who points out that Villaronga “loved people and loved the cinema,” and when he died he had “about five projects.”
He reveals that the filmmaker had “great descents to hell” and “threw in the towel twice” after two separate failures, after “El niño de la luna” and before “Pa negre”, but after the success achieved with this one “he said that he was delighted that the industry loved him, because they knew he was a freaky, cursed kid.”
“The belly of the sea” was born in the midst of a pandemic from a theatrical adaptation, first with the idea of shooting a short that later became a feature film “to get some public money.”
“It was a very hard and very special shoot, and one of the freest that Agustí has done, and that excites me a lot. It was like an older child who wanted to do what he wanted”, says Mulet, who believes that “El vientre del mar” is “painful, very cruel, very poetic, very experimental, it is flesh, it is skin and it is soul”.