Thirty years after 'El sol del membrillo', Víctor Erice returns to the feature with 'Cerrar los ojos'

Although his relationship with the world of images (short films and video installations) has been almost constant, Víctor Erice returns thirty years after filming The quince sun to get behind the camera to direct a fiction feature film: close your eyes.

Con script by Erice himself and Michel Gaztambide (winner of a Goya for There will be no peace for the wicked), the film tells the story of a disappearance, which revolves around the themes of identity and memory.

The film has a cast starring Manolo Solo, along with Jose Coronado, Ana Torrent, María León, Petra Martínez, Soledad Villamil, Mario Pardo, Elena Miquel, and José María Pou, among others.

close your eyes recreates the life of a famous Spanish actor, Julio Arenas, who disappears during the filming of a film. Although his body is never found, the police conclude that he has suffered an accident on the edge of the sea.

Many years later, this kind of mystery returns to the present as a result of a television program that aims to evoke the figure of the actor, offering as the first scoop images of the last scenes in which he participated, filmed by his close friend, the director Miguel Garay. The beginning and the end of an unfinished film.

The film, which is shot between Granada, Almería, Asturias and Madrid, is a co-production of The look of goodbye A.I.E, led by Cristina Zumarraga through Tandem Films your company with Pablo E. Bossi, next to Pecado Films of Jose Alba y Odile Antonio-Baez in the Andalusian part, with Pampa Films in co-production from Argentina and Erice himself with his production company Nautilus Films.

Technical team

For his new feature film Erice has had Valentín Álvarez as director of photography, with whom he already worked in The Red Dead y Broken glass, Erice's contribution to Centro Historico, the film promoted by the celebration of the Portuguese city of Guimaraes as European Capital of Culture, and which also included episodes by Pedro Costa, Manoel de Oliveira and Aki Kaurismaki.

and with him sound engineer Iván Marín (The skin I live in, The good pattern) who worked with Erice on Ten Minutes Older, and in Erice-Kiarostami: Correspondences. Sound post-production will be carried out by Juan Ferro.

Names such as Curru Garabal (Bad weather) responsible for art direction, Helena Sanchis (Numbered days, The spherical letter) who will be in charge of the wardrobe, or Ascend Marchena (The inner island), who will sign the assembly. The soundtrack will be provided by Frederick Jusid (The secret of his eyes).

Víctor Erice, has been worthy of countless recognitions among which the Golden Shell in 1973 stands out for his first film The Spirit of the Hive; the Golden Hugo from the Chicago Film Festival for his second feature film, The South; and two awards from the Jury and International Critics at the 1992 Cannes Festival, for The quince sun. This film obtained special recognition when it was voted as the best film of its decade by Film Archives and Cultural Centers around the world. In 1993, Erice received the National Cinematography Award, and in 1995 the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. More recently, in 2014, the Locarno Festival awarded him the Leopard of Honor dedicated to his entire career as a filmmaker.

close your eyes, his fourth feature film, will hit Spanish cinemas in 2023 from the hand of Avalon and will have Film Factory to carry out international sales.