Fernando Trueba, behind the story of a great

The director, producer and screenwriter was in charge of “El Olimpido Que Seremos”, a film based on the book of the same name and shortlisted for the Platino Awards, which tells in detail the story of the doctor Héctor Abad Gómez, his concerns, his family life and his legacy.

Héctor Abad Gómez was born in Jericó, Medellín, in 1921. A health doctor, passionate about human rights and public health, a social leader committed to his country, who left an irrefutable legacy in Colombia. He was assassinated on August 25, 1987, after receiving constant threats for denouncing paramilitary groups.

Almost two decades after his death, his only son, the writer and journalist Héctor Abad Faciolince, published the book The Forgotten We Will Be , a story that closely shows the admiration he feels for his father, for his work and his commitment … The work, translated into 12 languages and sold in more than 20 countries, was made into a film. The film, directed by the Spanish Fernando Trueba and produced by Dago Producciones, which was selected at Cannes 2020 and won the Goya for Best Ibero-American Film, will hit theaters in June of this year.

To bring the life of a character as important as Héctor Abad Gómez to the big screen, the direction of a great was needed. For this reason, Gonzalo Córdoba, president of Caracol Televisión, thought of Fernando Trueba for this task, which would not be easy at all. But why Trueba? The Spanish director, producer and screenwriter has had a successful film career and his catalog contains more than 10 films that have been repeatedly awarded.

But beyond his success, Córdoba thought of him to direct this story full of nuances thanks to the time they shared together at the Hay Festival. There he met him, and when the idea of carrying out this project arose, based on his homonymous book, Gonzalo Córdoba did not hesitate to travel to Madrid to propose to the Spanish director to participate in the film.

For Trueba, who had read the book The forgetfulness that we will be a long time ago, it was not easy to accept the proposal. “My response was: ‘I love and am flattered that they offer me this, directing a book that I like so much and that I have given so many times to my friends, and even to my mother, but it can’t be done… it’s not possible’, that was my first opinion ”, confesses the director, emphasizing the love and respect he felt for the story.

“Gonzalo (Córdoba), with his particular elegance, convinced me. He listened to all my reasons, understood them, and in the end he asked me if I was willing to read the book again to find an angle from which, cinematically, the film could work. I answered yes, “concludes Trueba.

The rereading did not change his mind, but it did help him to consider the possibility of capturing the entire essence of the work in a film that did not ignore any important detail in the life of the doctor Héctor Abad Gómez, played by the Spanish actor Javier Cámara. , so he made a proposal: to concentrate the whole story in two moments. First, childhood, and second, the events around death. The director thought that if it was possible to organize the story in that way, perhaps there was a possibility of telling it audiovisually.

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There was something else that motivated Trueba to carry out this project, and it was its protagonist. The fact of telling a story that spoke of a character with so much strength in his convictions and courage to give his life for the good of others was another factor that strongly influenced the director’s criteria.

“I always say that cinema is much more than the stories of psychopaths, murderers, criminals, superheroes … if you have the opportunity to tell a story of a decent man, of a guy who was a humanist, who dedicated his life to making things for others, why not? ”, says Trueba. “I knew that if I didn’t, maybe I would regret it all my life. You cannot be questioning why the same things are always told in the cinema, and not make a difference “, he concludes.

This premise was also made clear by his brother David Trueba, screenwriter of The Oblivion We Will Be , together they were a great team and reached the pertinent conclusions to move the story forward and obtain the final result. “I had worked with David before, but on this project, once I asked him to write the script and we had some previous conversations about my point of view, he made his adaptation, we read it together, we corrected things, but the work was done by him , which for me, who has always worked on my scripts, was a way of discovering that it gave me a kind of great freedom as a director ”, he comments.

Although the film was shot before the pandemic, the direction of El oblivido que seremos represented several challenges for Trueba, who had agreed to tell the story of a Colombian and adapt it to the time of a country that was not his own. “The most difficult thing was assimilating that I was playing with a new team, new actors, in a culture and a city that are not mine, with accents and a way of speaking that were not mine,” says Trueba, who also stated that he had to be very humble when it came to listening to everyone around him in the production.

There was no better time to bring this movie to theaters than today. If the work of Héctor Abad Gómez was characterized by something, it was because of his insistence on hand washing to maintain sanitation and prevent diseases and even pandemics. It was a great coincidence that just when filming was finished, the coronavirus began to spread around the world.

“The pandemic gives a dramatic topicality to The forgetfulness that we will be , and it is ironic to think about how the character of Dr. Abad, who was a hygienist man, who fought for vaccines, is precisely the man we honor in the film”, adds Trueba, who is now convinced that this story on paper should be taken to the cinema, because of the values it defends, because of what it makes us feel and because, according to the director, it affects us all. “The life of Héctor Abad Gómez must be told and recounted,” he says.

The film, which will hit theaters in June, has a cast made up of Patricia Tamayo, Javier Cámara, Juan Pablo Urrego, Laura Londoño, María Teresa Barreto, Kami Zea, Elizabeth Minotta, Luciana Echeverry, Camila Zárate, Whit Stillman and Nicolás Reyes.