Ventura Pons

(3-1995)

Josep Gifreu and Jordi Balló introduced the Catalonian film director Ventura Pons as belonging to a not very numerous group of film directors in Catalonia who have also worked in other areas such as theatre; this is noticeable in his capacity for directing actors and making the stories flow.

Ventura Pons debuted in cinema with Ocaña, retrat intermitent, which, in Jordi Balló's words, is "probably the most profitable film in Catalonian cinema. V. Pons belongs to that select group of directors of whom it is said that the best films they have made are the first and the latest; that is an explicit and flattering recognition of the confidence given by his work and the expectation which the next one opens up."

In his speech, Pons explained his meeting with Quim Monzó and the efforts to adapt his short stories to cinema language. In El perquè de tot plegat, he tried to make a minimalist frieze about human relationships, placed somewhere between will and doubt. "The problems began with the internal structure of the film. Adapting it was to be a mixture of narrative structures; some stories were given traditional dialogue, I respected others and left them to be led by a voice off, and I turned two stories into on-camera monologues; I had a yen for a diversity of style ... I have tried to vary the styles, going from a romantic style to a much denser one, or doing something much colder as a game, because for me the film is a bet, a game, a search for style, a reflection on my work and a view of where I'm going; this is why I end the film with a phrase, indecision, doubt, which is also a doubt about the work: you can offer me what you like, but that won't relieve me of the work of having to decide what I want. This is the film's cinematographic reflection."

The conversation was on matters as diverse as the relationship between writers and cinema scriptwriters, adaptations, and the problems in Catalonian cinema and culture in general.

                                                                                                                                                                             Ventura Pons and Josep Gifreu