The director from La Mancha writes in his personal blog that "the experience on the island of rabbits has been wonderful", while recalling his experiences with César Manrique

Almodóvar thanks the Cabildo for their help in filming his film and complains about the lack of interest from the Canary Islands Government

"The experience on the island of rabbits has been wonderful." Pedro Almodóvar is so emphatic and delighted in his [blog->http://www.pedroalmodovar.es/PAB_ES_06_T.asp]. As he stated on several occasions during the ...

July 8 2008 (04:35 WEST)
Almodóvar thanks the Cabildo for their help in the filming of his movie and complains about the lack of interest from the Canary Islands Government
Almodóvar thanks the Cabildo for their help in the filming of his movie and complains about the lack of interest from the Canary Islands Government

"The experience on the island of rabbits has been wonderful." Pedro Almodóvar is so emphatic and delighted in his [blog->http://www.pedroalmodovar.es/PAB_ES_06_T.asp]. As he stated on several occasions during filming, the director from La Mancha takes advantage of his web space to thank again for the support received by the residents of the island. "I suppose the landscape influences people, just as people influence the landscape. The islanders are as respectful and kind as the atmosphere of the place where they live, despite its usual and inclement wind."

Almodóvar also takes the opportunity to thank the Cabildo for the facilities received, while attacking the "lack of interest of the Government of the Canary Islands". "Lanzarote will remain forever in the heart of "Broken Embraces", he says.

Cicerone and host

"I would have liked César to know that I have finally filmed on his island and that I have photographed some of his works," the director confesses in his blog.

Both met in 1986, when Pedro arrived in Lanzarote for the first time, accompanying a friend "in search of inner peace". "We were there for a week and César was our cicerone and host. All generosity, grace and inspiration," he says.

One of the most important sequences of the film was shot, precisely, in one of the roundabouts designed by César Manrique, specifically, in the one where the brilliant creator lost his life and, according to the director from La Mancha, by pure chance. "I chose a sculpture that imitates the continuous movement of the earth and the planets, designed to be moved by the wind. The circles, three circles, diaphanous, also have something of the wheel of fortune. In this case of bad fortune. After having chosen the place, we learned from the local press that Manrique himself had died in that place, sixteen years ago," he says.

This coincidence seemed "natural" to the director since "in this island so original everything seems natural to me, by ancestral, I suppose. I would have liked César, the man who fought and managed to preserve Lanzarote from devastating tourism, to know that his island is already immortalized in the negative of my film. And that the negatives, with little that they are taken care of, are eternal."

The director from La Mancha and his team are now filming at Estudios Barajas, in Madrid. Filming will not conclude until well into September and its premiere, according to estimates by Almodóvar himself, could take place in early 2009.

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