On January 17, 1966, under Franco's government, in the midst of the Cold War, four H-bombs crashed on Spanish soil following the explosion of an American B52 in full flight while refueling with kerosene.
Four atomic bombs exploding in the region of Palomares, about a hundred kilometers from Almeria. Although the main chain reaction was averted by a safety system, they released enough plutonium to contaminate the impact areas persistently.
Since then, the Palomares region has been, apart from the Chernobyl reactor, the most plutonium-polluted place in the world. Under Franco, the reality of the situation was silenced and the Americans lied about the results of the examinations to quantify radioactivity. In 1966, they cleaned up and brought back to the USA 1500 barrels of contaminated soil. Several areas of the region are still completely off-limits today to avoid disturbing the land and spreading radiation. One of these zones has a surface of a hundred square kilometers. The disaster is incredible as much as the fear, oblivion and silence that surrounds it.
On January 17, 2016, the 50th anniversary of the disaster was commemorated in Almeria. On the spot, almost no one to claim a rapid cleaning of the land (although the USA has signed to do so). An environmental activist explains to me anyway that trying to stir up the situation makes him a dangerous person and threatened by land users and other politicians.
He also teaches me a secret. 700 barrels of nuclear waste disappeared from army stockpiles. They are hidden somewhere around the corner and have never been found. Some say that Franco had them buried in the Cabo de Gata natural park to get rid of them. It is these barrels that Simon Sastre, the hero of this story discovers. This hidden poison is burning his brain and gradually his body. Then, by extension, the entire region.
The no-go zones that spread out next to farms and fall from the clouds. The region has been living next to these ultra-dangerous areas, pretending nothing has happened for 50 years.
I had a film subject. But then we had to find a way to take some distance to talk about this in fiction. This is where the notion of duende made sense to me.
THE SALAMANDER
The duende (literally "demon") is an important aspect of Hispanic culture. Federico Garcia Lorca speaks of it as a "mysterious power that everyone feels and that no philosopher can explain". A power that is born deep in the guts like the bloodiest gesture, the cry of the soul freed from conditioning. The duende cannot be reflected or reproduced. It exists at the moment, it is free. It looks like mojo or what is called soul. To exist, he needs guts, blood, magic, passion, love, death. It comes with strong images, dark musicalities, an earthy rhythm. It is of course found in flamenco but also in cinema, theater, painting all the arts can have duende. The Duende is the fusion with his inner demon that creates magic.
I wanted a man to himself become the duende of a region and reveal his truth.
It has become Simon Sastre, a dreamy worker without any particular quality who, following the attack of a nightmarish creature (literally a demon or his demon) follows a spiral towards the depths of the earth and what should not be to open…
My idea was to speak, in a fiction that could seem fantastic, of a serious reality, hardly believable and of what it implies as consequences. A contemporary folk tale for adults.
3. Cabo De Gata
I have an affection for the south of Spain, the Sorbas region, the Tabernas desert and the Cabo de Gata natural park, having spent time there in my youth and which plays an important role for me emotionally speaking in my contact with dreams and films. This corner of the south is uncanny itself. It's a movie location, the setting for some of the greatest spaghetti westerns, sci-fi and adventure films. A soil that inspired Dali, Huxley, a macabre, surreal and volcanic land. The feeling of a land haunted by wandering spirits on the reddish rocks at night. A perfume from beyond, a land in places lunar with a past of war, rebellion, cry, blood and songs.
In winter, it's almost empty villages, ruins, no mans land. The crisis has hit Andalusia hard. The Cabo de Gata region is also the scene of Blood Wedding, the tragedy by Garcia Lorca that is supposed to be adapted into the film and for which Linda must make one. It refers to the dramas of this contemporary history and implicitly brings the presence of the "Andalusian dog", the nickname that Dali and Buñuel gave to Garcia Lorca. He, his play, surrealism are the forces surrounding the story.
MEMPHIS
CHARACTERS
SIMON SATRE