My Name Is Juani

Colour, 35 mm
Spain, 2006, 91 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

In his portrait of an 18-year-old hypermarket cashier who decides to conquer the world, Luna returns to the model of his hero from Ham, Ham or Golden Balls. On this occasion, his “Iberian icon” has simply changed sex. Framed by a love story, the portrayal of 21st century personal ambition is left to the feminine gender, to which the Spanish machismo has to relinquish its dominant role. Dreams, passion, love and betrayal together create a female portrait with the aim of revealing the “transformation of a character into a true individual”: Juani longs for a career as an actress. Apart from the destructive gloom of her profession, she’s tethered to the stereotypical life of young people in the suburbs with their hip hop culture, and her parents’ problems are also beginning to get her down. She has been seeing Jonah since she was fifteen and she finds his jealousy constricting. But only until she decides to go after her dream… Luna spent eight months auditioning three thousand novice actresses for the lead in his film, determined to repeat his successful discoveries of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. He is currently planning a sequel entitled Juani Hollywood, again starring Verónica Echegui.

About the director

Bigas Luna (b. 1946, Barcelona), an internationally renowned director, studied design and, at the end of the 1960s, he and Carlos Riart set up Estudio Gris, a Barcelona studio which became established in avant-garde design. He turned exclusively to film after the death of dictator General Franco, but even his debut Tattoo (Tatuaje, 1976) had a problem with censorship. In the post-Franco era, he was the first to deal with the taboo theme of sex in his film Bilbao (1978). His four years in Los Angeles are reflected in his films from the 1980s: Reborn (1981) and Lola (1985). In 2001 the KV festival organised a Tribute to Bigas Luna, screening seven of his films from the 1990s, his most productive and successful decade: The Ages of Lulú (1990), the cult film featuring Javier Bardem Ham, Ham (1991), The Golden Balls (1993), The Tit and the Moon (1994), The Chambermaid on the Titanic (1996), Volavérunt (1999) and Sound of the Sea (2001).