‘Honesty’, an uncomfortable debate about power and feminism

During a shoot, a young director and a mature actress argue over a scene: she refuses to appear naked. This is the starting point ofhonestya work of Francesc Cuéllar which adapts his first film So far everything goesavailable at Filmin. The piece has a theatrical format since its cinematographic origins, with a conversation in a single space and without temporal ellipsis. Added to this is the director’s desire to continue “exploring and expanding the theme”, extending the text and looking for more nuances.

The work starts a complex melon, that of the honesty of the title, an ideal that we all claim, but which is very difficult to maintain until the last consequences. Cuéllar tries to “find the cracks in our ideologies, those of a generation that says it is much more feminist and allied. When it is faced with a real conflict that is where it has to prove it”, he explains. The author wanted to strengthen the two characters to establish a debate without good or bad: “I think that when you destroy a very well-prepared speech it has much more power than when you load a simple and banal speech”. During the dialectical confrontation, the audience’s support changes from one character to the other: “This ideological swing makes you think. I think it’s cool to leave the theater different from how you entered it.”

Cuéllar, who co-stars in the film as well as writing and directing it, explains that during the writing process he worked a lot with his co-star, the actress Lola Marceli. Even so, he defends that, as a man, he also has the responsibility to talk about feminism: “We can’t let the fight and pedagogy be done only by women, because we guys have to rethink three times as much as they do.”

In order to work on the stage version, the director has decided to stay behind the scenes and expand his sights with a new pair of performers, Miriam Iscla i Daphnis Balduzthus betting on a more collective work. The work also has Hause & Richman, the production company of Jordi Casanovas i Carlos Manrique. “This is one of the few times that I have been able to calmly imagine what I would like”, reflects Cuéllar. “You have a team, and everything that your creativity and your stage view thinks the piece needs, the team works to achieve it. This is a privilege and I am taking it with a lot of respect, with a lot of pride, but above all with a lot of awareness that I have to make good use of it.”

tell stories

At 32 years old, Cuéllar has acted in series and theaters big and small, created several shows and directed two films. He also works on poetry, a genre he has written, published and recited. In addition, he directs a festival of one-man pieces in the Alt Penedès, the Soolus. “I really like cultural management, I think that from here there are also narratives. The ideological line with which programs tell a story of a territory or a context”. In the end, “I came to the conclusion that my job is to tell stories. Each story is born with a specific nature and, therefore, with a specific format”, he argues.

When we ask him what other projects he is currently working on, he still has the ability to surprise us with new disciplines. He will publish a novel in March, has pending the release of a new solo outside Catalonia and is immersed in a research project on Catalan scenic heritage: “In the new generations, adults make us lazy, but in these people there is the story of where we come from. If we don’t listen to it, if we don’t catch it, this knowledge will end up dying”.

In the end, Cuéllar vindicates the need to do what attracts him at every moment, without market logic or impositions. “I think that when you listen to what you want to explore, everything happens more organically and easily,” he concludes.

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