"Two women inherit a bakery from another woman they don't know." That's how quick and direct the synopsis is that it gives us Christina Campos of his novel Lemon bread with poppy seeds.
The story that she published in 2016 has become a long-seller (a lasting bestseller) with more than 300,000 copies sold worldwide and is now coming to the cinema directed by Benito Zambrano (premiere on November 12).
From this simple plot, Campos (who has also participated in writing the script) creates a much more complex and complete story, a story "On the Generosity of Female Friendship" "a tribute to those groups of friends so sincere", to those moments of intimacy and laughter between friends that solve the whole life.
That was the starting point of her story. With the premise and message in mind, Campos, a frustrated filmmaker, screenwriter, decided that she had to isolate herself if she wanted to write it. and she thought about Majorca, some lost town in the Sierra de la Tramuntana and ended up in "a stone house in the center of Valldemossa". There her women finished taking shape.
Anna (Eva Martín) and Marina (Elia Galera) in Sa Calobra.
Next to that rented house she found the bakery that served as an inspiring space. She met the people of the town, without a car, with a basic cell phone, she took advantage of the hours without tourists to lose herself in the magic of a town that was a refuge for Chopin and his mistress.
Five years later, Lemon Poppy Seed Bread hits theaters, directed by Benito Zambrano (Solas, Intemperie) and starring Elia Galera and Eva Martin in the roles of two very different sisters.
The first is an NGO doctor who has been living in Africa for years, the second never left Mallorca and lives unhappily with her husband. After 15 years without seeing each other, they meet in her town in Valldemossa, they reconcile and form a cluster of women from different generations and origins around bread and the past.
“This is a story of growth, of overcoming, of healing wounds, of mature and intelligent women claiming They don't need a man's permission or approval to make decisions. But, above all, It is a story of love and tenderness." explains Zambrano, who has dedicated the film to his personal tribe of women.
In the work of Ca'n Molinas.
PARADISE VALLDEMOSSA
From the first moment they considered that the film would be shot in the same locations of Mallorca who had helped Cristina Campos to build history. The team moved to Valldemossa where they found the main locations.
The bakery, Ca'n Molinas, it is the same one that you can find in the center of town, a historic oven from 1920, of which they used its exterior and rebuilt its interior, the workshop in another place, in Ca's Garriguer, a large house on the outskirts of town to have more space for cameras and equipment. But if you enter Ca'n Molinas it is just like the one in the movie.
They also shot in many corners of this cobbled town that Chopin fell in love with. The Little Hotel is the hotel Ursula (Marilu Marini) in the film. The florist is Anna's Room. And the wonderful corner in which the two sisters reconcile with their past and their future, which they reach in a traditional llaut, is Sa Calobra and Torrent de Pareis.
Ca'n Molinas in Valldemossa.
For the African part they managed to locate in Senegal (although the novel took place in Ethiopia), but with the pandemic they had to place those scenes in The Gran Canarian palms. The old College of the Salesians is the hospital. La Finca Los Dolores, the orphanage; and the house where Marina (Elia Galera) lives, was shot at the Hotel Rural Molino del Agua.
THE LEMON BREAD
“The film deals with many universal themes, but it talks about several related to the importance of family, of brotherhood, of feeling that you have roots”, said Benito Zambrano during the promotion. “History demands that we return to certain traditional values that we should not have lost. For example, eat good bread, or a tomato that tastes like tomatoes". That is why the bread that tastes like bread, and that artisan workshop that opens every morning is more than an excuse in history.
Originally, Cristina Campos used another sweet, the most typical of Valldemossa, as a macguffin: potato coke. But although its flavor is delicious, as a name it was unappetizing to title a book.
In Torrent de Pareis.
That's how he came to this cake, “more lyrical” the lemon bread with poppy seeds, whose recipe appears in the novel, which the protagonists try to perfect just as Lola did, the mysterious woman from whom they inherit the workshop.
"The recipe is mine," says Campos. “It is a recipe that I took and I was trying and trying until I found the one that I liked the most: the exact amount of poppy seeds, much less sugar, wholemeal flour…”.
Artisan bread.