‘Dali’ director David Pujol sets new feature, series – Variety

Credit: Juanma Barbero Fornet

David Pujol, whose mesmerizing drama “Waiting for Dalí” premiered at the Malaga Film Festival on Sunday, has a new feature project and an international TV series in the works.

Pujol has just completed the script for “Rehearsal for a Kiss,” the story of a passionate but down-on-his-luck cinema owner in Barcelona whose love of classic films has left his cinema in a precarious position. On the verge of losing the family business, he seeks help from his uncle in America, who has made a career as a character actor in Hollywood. A flamboyant, larger-than-life personality, the uncle returns to his hometown after 40 years to help his nephew save the theater while reconnecting with his own past.

“The Flash Game,” meanwhile, is designed as an eight-part series set in the paparazzi world of the 1960s between Rome and London. It centers on the rebellious son of a British publishing tycoon who, eager to become a paparazzi himself, starts his own celebrity magazine filled with his own exclusive photos of high-profile personalities. Having learned his trade in Rome, the young bugger is constantly on the move, following Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Brigitte Bardot.

Pujol is reteaming with the producers of “Waiting for Dalí” in the works: Roger Corbi and Yan Fisher-Romanovsky of FishCorb Films and David Ortiz of Arlong Productions are together again on “Rehearsal for a Kiss,” while only the former so far. participates in “The Flash Game”.

“They’re great producers to work with,” adds Pujol.

The group enjoyed a rapturous reception at Málaga’s historic Teatro Cervantes, where the audience gave ‘Waiting for Dalí’ a standing ovation.

“It was very emotional,” says Pujol.

The film was a work of passion for the director, who brought together in the film two worlds he had explored in detail in previous documentaries – Salvador Dalí and the culinary wonders of Ferran Adrià, of the legendary El Bulli restaurant.

“That was the spark that ignited my imagination,” explains Pujol. “They both lived very close to each other, in the same area. So I imagined what it would be like if Dali had once gone to eat at El Bulli. I think he would really enjoy it because it was a very special place. That was the starting point for me.”

Set in 1975, during the days of Franco’s regime, Waiting for Dalí follows two brothers, Fernando (Iván Massagué) and Alberto (Pol López), who are forced to flee the Barcelona authorities and seek refuge in the small, idyllic seaside village of Cadaqués, where Dali lives with his wife.

There they find work at the beach restaurant owned by the wildly eccentric Jules (José García), a Dali fanatic who wants nothing more than to host the artist in his restaurant.

In this magical setting, Fernando, already a brilliant chef, discovers the true wonders of Mediterranean cuisine in its purest form, inspiring him to create something completely new, with an artistic flair.

Many of the dishes in the film were inspired by real-life El Bulli creations, Pujol says. “They are magical dishes, iconic. Because they are so beautiful, so sensitive, so fragile, I thought they represented Fernando’s development as a character very well.”

The film also encapsulates a magical time in Spanish history, in which freedom seemed close and the local beaches attracted more and more young immigrants from abroad who brought with them alternative ways of life.

Despite unrest elsewhere in the country, Cadaqués – located on Spain’s northeastern coast bordering France – has remained a remote paradise seemingly untouched by political trouble.

“People were able to live together, although very differently,” he adds, noting that the villagers included every social class in Europe: “aristocrats, hippies, poor, fishermen, artists, intellectuals, rich, bourgeois – everyone!”

It was something Dali valued so much that he often hosted wildly eclectic guests at his table, often placing, for example, a scruffy hippie next to a heavy-set aristocrat.

“He liked the mix and the challenge.”

Likewise, notes Pujol, Juli Soler, the late CEO of El Bulli and Adrià’s partner, “was a wonderful madman,” who, like Dalí, “welcomed everyone equally: One day she was an American woman in a T-shirt of the Rolling Stones. , another day a real king, a fisherman the next — everyone, like Dali.

“But Juli and Ferrán never thought of Dali. They didn’t know much about Dali, but they actually behaved in the same way, with the same nature, inspired by the same geography.”

‘Waiting for Dalí’ is sold internationally through Embankment.