Eating octopus in the old city.
A Patty coming out of the oven. and a hand mashing an octopus against the kitchen counter. Although "the frozen octopus does not need to be mashed", he tells her Mati (Eva Fernandez) to its her mother (Mela Casal) in the first scene of Brothers-in-law (theatrical release April 9). It begins so “The first great Galician comedy”. More Galician, impossible. And it follows: a match of the COB, the Ourensano Basketball Club, that team that is religion in the most unknown capital of Galicia.
But the Brothers-in-law almost came to Ourense by chance. Porto Cabo, the Galician producer, responsible for Iron, he wanted to launch into the cinema with a comedy. Araceli Gonda took care of the script. “It was a family comedy, with three brothers-in-law, but it was a bit neutral. And we realized that it lacked personality, that we needed to anchor it to a place”, Explain Alfonso White, producer of Cuñados and Portocabo. “And there it was simple, what I did was sweep home because I am from Ourense”.
Celebrating with Ribeiro.
The main elements of the story were found in Ourense, city and province. “The job of the two brothers-in-law (played by Xosé A. Touriñán and Miguel de Lira), with the wood; one of them (Touriñán) had a great fondness for a sport that we did not want to be the topic of football and Ourense is one of the few cities in Spain dedicated to another sport, basketball”, continues Blanco. For the three leading sisters they also sought a family and traditional union with the land: the wine tradition of the Region of O Ribeiro it was perfect.
"When we decided that the three sisters would take the father's winery and revive it, which ended up contributing to the story, you have no idea: three sisters, three enterprising women who continue a family tradition... There are many very nice messages there : keep the family together, preserve a type of organic farming, although, as they say, they always did it that way there, taking care of the environment, a business in the area... They are things that sneak into comedy and fill it with truth”, White explains.
Ourense in all its splendor.
In short, there can be fiction in fictional or undefined places, but the setting matters. “It happened to us with Hierro —says the producer— if you look at the sites fondly, if you don't just use them as a backdrop and you try to impregnate the story with a bit of what is unique about it, there is something there that pushes the content”.
THE 'BROTHERS-IN-LAW' ROUTE
Ourensanos will shed a tear watching the film of these two brothers-in-law with absurd ideas, but very good will. Very specific mentions, such as Pickle sandwiches: veal, bacon or loin, which do you prefer? The Ourensano Club, in which the producer Alfonso Blanco himself played, and the promotion final that they won in 2005 and that they have brought to the present day to provide a framework or excuse for comedy. The barrel, the language of sharpeners.
The Ourense Basketball Club.
And the wines of O Ribeiro, Sure. “The entire river valley, a very beautiful area with a lot of personality, the oldest appellation of origin in Galicia, in which there are even Roman vestiges of which wine was made. It has a thousand-year-old wine tradition and many very cool wineries to visit,” says Blanco. One of the main scenarios is, in fact, the winery of the three sisters, Fillas do Ribeiro, a real private winery, owned by two families, where they make their wine and eat, like the Cuñados family.
A Comarca do Ribeiro at sunset.
Another key scenario is Portovello restaurant in Allariz. “It is one of those with the greatest personality because it was an old leather factory, which worked with water mills, they recycled it into a museum and a restaurant,” says Blanco. “We wanted a place with a lot of character and it has. And the town of Allariz usually appears in the rankings of the most beautiful towns in Spain”.
And of course, Ourense, the city appears from different points of view. The industrial Estate where "the bad one, Zamora" works, the river, the old city, the Roman bridge. “We wanted to portray that singularity of our characters, each one lives in a part of the city and the place where he lives portrays him: Sabonis (Touriñán) who has a bad life, he has a half-shabby apartment in the old city, with a lot of charm, but few comforts. Edward (DeLira) He lives in an urbanization on the outskirts with tremendous views, but little personality because they are all semi-detached, and Mati lives in the center, next to the Roman bridge”.
The Roman bridge of Ourense.
In the old city the two brothers-in-law and their new friend, Modesto (Federico Perez Rey), another brother-in-law, to eat octopus with some wines. "The day the octopus is missing in this country there is a civil war", Modest says. Y the octopus is another protagonist, with which Zamora traffics, to deceive the Chinese, because you don't even try a Galician pulpeira, much less in the festival of O Carballiño . It is not by chance. Ourense is the world capital of the octopus. "It's that rare thing in Galicia that the good octopus is cooked in the interior, not on the coast," says the producer, who was shooting for the first time at home and swept home well, filling the film with Ourense and personal winks.
The final roll is played with the music of Lamatumba, the mythical band from Ourense "that marked a generation". “The music is very partying, that verbena flavor, which is also something very much ours, the orchestras, the summer festivals, Lamatumbá picks up that tradition —says Blanco—. It seems that he associates us with Rosalía and the drama poets, but there is a very powerful party tradition in Galicia and Lamatumba drinks from there”.