Cinema for me is…
Spain – Alba Villarmea Sancho from Europa Cinemas on Vimeo.
Alba in 23 Frames
1. Describe yourself in ten words.
Quiet and listening. Trying to learn.
2. Your best quality? Your worst habit?
Always trying to revision myself, but usually stressed about it.
3. Your dream job?
Creating, whether visually or writing.
Cinema-related activities too (programming festivals, reviews).
4. What do you like most about your country?
Folklore (not involving animal hurting), northern landscapes, sea and mountain.
5. Your favorite dish in your country?
My grandmother’s tortos de maíz with Cabrales blue cheese.
6. Which word or phrase in your native language do you like the most and what does it mean?
Orbayu, in bable, Asturia’s regional language. It means a particular cold, soft rain born by the humidity of the region.
7. What European capital have you visited lately?
Stockholm, during the Marina Abramovic’s exhibition at the Moderna Museet.
8. Other than your own, which European country would you love to live in?
Romania, I went two winters ago and got fascinated by its people and way of living. Portugal is another great option.
9. What does Europe mean to you? 3 values
– Opportunities for some of the citizens in the member states. No borders inside it.
– Nice potential idea, needs to rethink herself.
– Unfortunately, exclusive and excluding with the countries surrounding it. Neutralizing outsider cultures that try to get in. Needs to be understood not as a whole block.
10. What film made you fall in love with cinema?
Maya Deren’s Meshes of the afternoon (1943, US) during my cinema history class in the first year of college.
11. Your favorite film theatre? What do you like about it?
Zumzeig Cinema Cooperative. It is alive thanks to the collaboration of the social basis. It’s rooted in the neighborhood and tries to propose activities that include people of all ages and interests. Many of the important decisions are taken through horizontally and in participatory ways.
12. Who is your movie hero?
Agnes Vardà performing herself.
13. Which movie director would you like to be?
Regarding what he understands as cinema, probably Jonas Mekas who keeps recording everything that surrounds him by the age of 95.
14. Briefly describe your favorite scene.
Two shaved little brothers have breakfast in a kitchen, a cat gently drinks milk from the same bowl, one of the kids puts some sugar in the animal’s head. Behind the children, a blond woman dressed in rural clothes, she stands up and sits near the window. It stars to rain and she stars crying. A scream outside the house, the woman goes out followed by the children. The house next door is burning. They three stand in the porch behind the rain and stare at the flames. The Mirror (Andréi Tarkovsky, 1974, RU).
15. What are the 3 best European films you have seen in the last year?
Grave (Julia Ducournau, 2017, FR)
Ainhoa, yo no soy esa (Carolina Astudillo, 2018, ES)
Estiu 1993 (Carla Simón, 2017, ES).
16. Which film character do you most identify with?
Any youngster trying to study and work at the same time. Catalan movie Les amigues de l’Àgata (Alba Cros / Laia Alabart / Marta Verheyen / Laura Rius, 2015, ES) and its characters describe some of the phases of my youth.
17. Your favorite soundtrack or song?
Again Grave’s “Plus pute que toutes les putes” (ORTIES).
18. If you had to live in a movie, which one would you like it to be?
Probably in any of Rohmer’s tales. The autumn one seems quite relaxing.
19. Your life becomes a bio-pic. Who plays the role of you?
Frankie Shaw (Please!).
20. Which talent would you most like to have?
Memory, sense of composition.
21. What is your most treasured possession?
I kind of keep all the leaflets, posters and free magazines that I see when I go to my favourite cinemas, so I’ve made a nice collection.
22. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Dealing with public university in Spain. Dealing with real estate agencies in Barcelona.
23. What is your motto?
I don’t have one.