Agustí Villaronga films 'The belly of the sea' in the Mediterranean

The film is produced by Testament and La Perifèrica produccions with the sponsorship of the Fundacio Mallorca Turisme and the participation of TV3 and IB3.

Agustí Villaronga (Pa negro, Uncertain glory, Born King) is shooting his new film these days in locations in Mallorca and the Mediterranean Sea The belly of the sea. With a script by Villaronga himself, the film is based on a text by Alessandro Baricco.

Starring by Roger Casamajor, Oscar Kapoya and Muminu Diayo, The belly of the sea is produced by Testament y The Peripheral Productions with the sponsorship of the Fundacio Mallorca Turisme and the participation of TV3 and IB3.

The belly of the sea It is a film based on real events. After the shipwreck of a ship, 147 men try to save themselves, confined on a raft adrift in the middle of the sea. A horror that lasted days and days. A conflict that evokes the wound of man.

This shipwreck was immortalized by Théodore Gericault in the famous canvas The Raft of the Medusa, preserved in the Louvre Museum.

The Italian writer Alessandro Baricco narrates these events in the novel Oceano Mare, concentrated in a chapter titled The belly of the sea.

The conflict

This project not only narrates a terrible real event that occurred during the colonization of Senegal but rather it focuses on many of the current conflicts such as the racial tensions currently arising in the USA, the abandonment to which many people will be subjected due to the COVID economic crisis and an inevitable reference such as the migratory movements of the Mediterranean.

Alesandro Baricco in his text plays with poetic, fantastic and symbolic nuances at all times on the edge of a palpable reality to discover the true. What it seeks to understand is how the human soul faces conflicts.

Agustí Villaronga reconoce que “la idea de llevar a cabo este proyecto nació libre en su momento y estaba planteada en un principio para una obra de teatro. En el camino se cruzó una pandemia y el mundo de la cultura, como muchos otros, quedó desprotegido. Hubo momento que parecía que el mundo se iba a la deriva como la balsa. Nos planteamos muchas dudas y reflexionamos sobre como afrontar este conflicto. Así nació este proyecto, con la idea de comprendernos un poco mas a nosotros ante las dificultades y tratando de entender los conflictos”.