Feb 13, 2026
3 min read
The director of masterpieces like 'Innisfree' or 'Under Construction' returns to capture the humanity and complexity of marginalized communities in 'Good Valley Stories'
José Luis Guérin: "When I'm in doubt as a director, I think about what social networks would do and I do the opposite"
José Luis Guérin speaks calmly. Slowly. Think about your answers. His way of speaking seems related to his films. A film that takes time. At a time when everything is busy, where everything is formulaic and algorithmic, he struggles to see without bias. Every shot, every sentence to pause and relax.
It's not new.His cinema is always like this.So while almost every weekend movie gets forgotten in the blink of an eye, his films are remembered, grown and approved.You have to go back 25 years to see some of his masterpieces like Discontent and Construction, which deals with gentrification in the slums.The two seemingly identical films - which won the Special Jury Prize in San Sebastián - set their sights on bringing community dignity to another community around Vallebona, a neighborhood threatened by the city's destructive urban development process.
When did you first discover Vallbona? Is there something special when you see a person or a place that makes you want to capture it with your camera?
There is something everywhere.I don't differentiate between those films that started from my first impression or that I was asked to do something.What matters is whether you participated or not.When they encourage me to do something, they have to assure me that I can do what I want in terms of freedom of vision.There are no good lessons or bad lessons, but everything is a matter of perspective, observation, discovery.Even if I visit places I don't like, the problem is the place I think is not mine, but mine, because I didn't take the time to look at it.
In this sense, the first visit to Vallbona was a bit disappointing, because it is a place that in my opinion is initially airless, without space, without life in public space.It was very opposite to the location of Under Construction, where all the stories and characters were clearly visible, at street level.Here we had to do another type of work, more presentational, to find a way to look for actors who wanted to collaborate with us.
He says that the movie is very attached to the importance of the subject that the movie talks about.
In this sense, I sometimes talk a lot with young filmmakers and students when I have my first teaching steps.Because they plan almost everything on the importance of the topic.There are many movies about what they know about intimacy.narcissism.Sometimes they even accuse you of wanting to get involved with other information that is not yours
Interestingly, Lucretia Martel mentions this in a discussion included in her recent book: You don't have to be afraid that it's cultural appropriation, because if you approach it honestly, it's not.
Of course, I understand cinema first and foremost as a way of building bridges.Imagine how sad the history of cinema would be if every filmmaker limited himself to filming his immediate surroundings and his immediate reality.It is also a recent phenomenon to examine the immediate environment and produce remarkable works.Also, first-person cinema, for example, which is something that came about with digital culture, especially with the proliferation of cameras and very light equipment.Before that it was very difficult.Jonas Mekas is one of the pioneers in this, and Chantal Akerman.And now I notice when I'm at some documentary workshops that this is what interests young people the most.
Maybe because the film is so obscure, it's easier to pick up something small and close to some money?
yes, what you have to offer is interesting. of course yes.There is something very good about the democratization of technology.In principle, this is a very good thing, but it inevitably involves absurdity.This happens in any environment.But the more democratized the medium is, the more we need to introduce more formality to tighten up the writing to give our images some gravity, some power, because otherwise, everything u Because the tubes end up in garbage.
Imagine how sad the history of cinema would be if the filmmaker was limited to filming his immediate environment and immediate reality.
Jonas Trueba, the producer of Historias del Buen Valle, points out the importance of form, but what the film tells is as much political as how it is made.
Undoubtedly.That's right.Not just now, I've always thought so.It is a way of looking at and relating to the viewer.And how do you feel about it.To think about a film well, I believe, is also to take into account respect for the viewer with whom you are talking.In complete contrast to social media, where there are people who post feelings of nausea when they wake up in the morning or insults.A message without any explanation.If you think of form, in an understandable way, not as decoration, but as a means of conveying feelings and opinions, then this is what makes visible your relationship with the world.
Sometimes I see films with a very social character or will, but who marks the other as if it were... I don't know.It is important to me that the sound quality with which a character from my neighborhood speaks is the same as if it were Marlon Brando.Also, how to film a person with the audience.And I go back to the networks, because when I'm in doubt, I think, what will the networks do?And I do the opposite.Let's say that in the networks, they feed on a monstrous schematism, in which a person is reduced to one category: fagot, "fake", sexist... Faced with this, cinema must return the complexity of reality.
What do you think of the Social Cinema label?
It's a topic that worries me because often what we call social cinema is a film where the truth is pre-written to reflect the dialogue, where the dialogue dominates the reality and makes it easy for you to not understand.Truth is complex, contradictory, incomprehensible realms.So, when this tool is used as a simple metaphor for speech, I think we insult the viewer and treat him as a fool.It's politics.the viewer is like an idiot, that's politics.You have to treat the viewer with an adult, let them judge.
You mentioned that you don't think of a theme in advance, but I'm thinking about Tales from the Good Valley and imagining that the theme will reveal itself at some point.
Yes. It's clear to me that the neighborhood is the problem.When I choose my characters, I judge not only the individual quality of each, but also the importance they have in the human form of the neighborhood.Whether it is the Catalan peasants, the new global migration from Latin America for reasons such as Andalusian migration, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, etc., or displacement.touchThat is, all these different states are represented and give a fair picture of the neighborhood.There are many themes, but always separated or unified by that geography, which at some point is a well-understood valley.
Many see a thread between Under Construction and Stories from the Good Valley due to the impact of urban policies on relationships.Do you understand why people build that connection?
I understand it very well.I was surprised to see that there was almost a causal relationship between the two movies.In Under Construction we witnessed the construction of a building as it involved the destruction of an old building in a neighborhood that was demolished.And where did these evicted neighbors go?Well, and on the outskirts, there’s Valbona’s character, whom I met while filming “Under Construction.”As in almost all European cities, public life is shifting to the surrounding areas.At the center are commercial franchises and tourism, making it very difficult to experience popular daily life.
Treating you as a fool is political.You have to treat the viewer with a certain maturity, let them judge
Under construction, could have been shot yesterday...
Does it hold up well?
For example, I was surprised... In the construction area, many people met in the street and talked to their neighbours.I wonder if that could happen in that neighborhood today.The idea of neighbors meeting and talking in public places is natural, they rarely find it in bars where they say the words lunch, lunch, coffee, mojito or Starbucks Coffee.
You've said before that there's no such thing as bad subject matter, but it depends on how you watch it, I'm wondering.What do you do if a platform like Netflix comes along and gives you complete freedom to choose that view and what you want?Do you have red lines?
I wouldn't believe it.It will be a red line of faith.I faced that problem.It may be bad, they asked me a document about the palliative hospital where they gave me all the freedom, but supported by them, research palliative care and the bank.I know that they are lying, that I will not have the freedom that I need to do, so it is better to say no and avoid problems.They also released a movie about PSUC, which I enjoyed.But no matter how much I love and respect him, I was not created to live a holy life.It will be so sad.So you avoid those things.
