Fermín Cabanillas I Gelves (Sevilla), (EFE) of ‘Rita’, the first film with the Sevillian actress Paz Vega at the helm as director, which has transported the town to the 80s.
“Haciendo patria”, the actress, who has established her residence in the Dominican Republic for some time, has wanted her hometown -Seville- and the province to be the protagonists of her debut film and, with her team, she has worked so that a corner of this neighborhood of Gelves, a municipality located ten kilometers from the capital, becomes part of a city from the 80s of the last century.
Not a detail has been missing to achieve a jump back in time of 40 years; The epicenter of the shoot is the ‘Tienda Las Hermanas’, a typical “diversion” of those who supply the basics to the neighbors any day of the year and in which this Friday, from the outside, you could only see items typical of the time .
The iconic Seat 600
The production company has also relied on the aesthetics of the neighborhood, which has not changed its appearance for decades, and has completed the change with some cars that only lovers of the classic still keep.
Among them an icon of this country, the Seat 600, with a Barcelona license plate and owned by Lucas Nascimento, a young Portuguese resident of Seville who explains that, although the car was registered in 1967, “to this day we continue to use it daily , not only in concentrations” despite the fact that this utility needs “leaded gasoline”, which implies having to add a special additive to the fuel so that it can circulate during the approximately 200 kilometers that it has autonomy.
At 11:36 a.m., the magic phrase from the cinema was heard for the first time in one of the streets of Gelves: “Motor… Action!”, at which time Paz Vega entered the scene with two children hand in hand on the way to the kiosk and pulling a shopping cart with a bunch of vegetables sticking out of it.
The scene has been repeated three times due to the curiosity of the residents of the neighborhood, who have been asked to concentrate on one of the sides of the ‘Duques de Alba’ school. They have collaborated at all times so that the filming on their street is a success, even one of the neighbors has warned that the trucks with the filming equipment were open and nobody was watching them.
Support from the Andalusian sector
They have all responded perfectly to the appeal of the City Council, which yesterday announced on its social networks that it was going to receive “the visit of a recording team from a film production company that has chosen a corner of our town to locate a scene from its next movie”.
‘Rita’ is a production by Áralan Films in association with Oda Films, with the participation of Canal Sur and subsidized by the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) and the Andalusian Agency of Cultural Institutions, with funding from Triodos Bank and Crea SGR.
Its cast is made up, for the most part, of Andalusian performers, such as Sofía Allepuz, Alejandro Escamilla, Roberto Alamo, Daniel Navarro, Paz de Alarcón, Amada Santos and Margarita Asquerino, as well as Paz Vega herself, who in her first foray after the cameras has also assumed the role of actress, the one she masters best.
They will be shooting this Friday in the town of Gelves, then the team will travel to the Seville neighborhood of Triana in search of its traditional food market, and this week they also plan to shoot in the María Luisa park.
Barring any changes, ‘Rita’ will be released during the year 2024, while the filming work will last, at least, until next June. EFE
