Pedro Almodóvar's two Julietas, Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suárez, continued the afternoon's festivities by presenting a film debate with the audience at the traditional KVIFF Talk.
The first question was directed at their work with Pedro Almodóvar: contrary to the actresses' expectations, he worked with each of them separately and did not allow them to nurture the role together. "I think that Pedro is an intelligent and very sensitive person, and he knows how to work with people. I asked him to take my hand and not leave me on my own, and he complied. I had previously seen him many times in the cinema and I knew what a brilliant director he is, but I did not know that he is also a wonderful person," Adriana Ugarte said of her collaboration with the Spanish director.
The two actresses, who both play the title role, both prepared for the film differently. While Emma needed to carry out a thorough literature search so as best to empathise with the role of a mother who loses her daughter, Adriana drew on momentaneous inspiration: "The filming was like jumping without wings; I had to be very flexible and live in the present moment. There was no way of preparing."
Immediately after filming Julieta, Emma Suárez got straight on with preparations for Isaki Lacuesta's The Next Skin. "The transition from one film to another was quite hectic for me. We finished filming Julieta on Thursday, and on Monday I started filming The Next Skin. Both films were about missing people, so you could say that I'm a bit of an expert on that subject. Thanks to this experience, I also found out how much the director's character underlies the form of the film. Both films share a common theme but are absolutely unalike. These two directors have completely different points of view."
Emma Suárez is presenting the Official Selection film The Next Skin in the Grand Hall at 17:00 on Monday. She and Adriana will then be travelling to more festivals. "We are presenting Julieta at festivals until December, and we don't know what will happen after that," said Adriana Ugarte in closing the KVIFF Talk.
