Press release
Round Table – Official book: ‘Felipe Vega: Being in cinema’
26th, April 2007
I don't want to fool anyone. I don’t want to pretend. If I am honest, I have to begin by saying who Felipe Vega is for me. To conceal it and hide so no one will know the relationship I have with him, my admiration and gratefulness, would be to deceive whoever reads this book. It is better to be clear about things, the letters sitting face up on my desk.For me Felipe is cinema, passion for cinema. And it is not a metaphor.
Jump to the past, around 1988. I was in Madrid studying at the Department of Information Science at Complutense University and dreaming of making films. Watching movies, all the movies I could. I was making some videos, super 8, photography… whatever it was that made me feel like I could be closer to cinema. I was, simply, one more student dreaming about cinema, and getting worn down by the years of studying in Madrid. I had come to the capital in 83 and barring any change in plans, in one or two years I would have to go back to my hometown in the south… to do who knows what.
That’s when Felipe showed up. El mejor de los tiempos showed up, a film, just a film. For me, much more. For me, cinema. Felipe was going to shoot in El Ejido, my hometown, the hometown where my parents lived. When they were getting situated, someone told him, I think it was Elías Palmero, a friend of my brother's, that there was a boy from the town who wanted to make films. Felipe got curious, or perhaps it was something else, something more mundane, I never asked him. In any case, he is the one who calls me. Yes, he calls me. He doesn’t call me himself, it was his assistant director Nacho Gutérrez Solana. Another person to whom I owe the cinema as well. They called me. And I trembled. And I did so because I had been called by a film director, I did so because they wanted to talk to me, I did so because perhaps I could work on a film…
…Everything I can say about that film, about the people who worked on it and about Felipe, is related to happiness. I discovered not only that I liked cinema, but also working in it: closing streets, running, bringing coffee… whatever I could to help put together that film. And I discovered a passion and love for cinema that showed in a crew and a director like Felipe. The movies were real and the passion for making them as well. El major de los tiempos showed me the place in the world where I wanted to live: cinema...
… Now almost 20 years later, I am offered to write a book about him. A long interview, an up-close look at his film work. Beyond my personal experience with Felipe, I admire him as a filmmaker. He has shown me how to watch films; he has been my teacher. I think he is one of the most interesting and honest directors that has come out of this country in the last thirty years, and I admire all his films…
…This book is an opportunity to show you the Felipe I know, the director from whom I have learned. It is a chance to share him…
Manuel Martín Cuenca
Extracts from the introduction to his book Felipe Vega. Estar en el cine