–What interests you most about working with the documentary format? What influence has your training had on you?

I’m not an orthodox documentary filmmaker. I’ve shot documentaries, but also fiction. From my beginnings at the CECC (Centre d’Estudis Cinematogràfics de Catalunya) film school in Barcelona, I’ve been drawn to cinema as motion pictures, without fissures or labels. I understand the cinematic act as a whole, and that’s why many of my films end up being hybrids. I’m particularly motivated by positioning myself on the edge between documentary and fiction, between reality and staging. The mixture of both concepts opens the door to the poetic and brings us closer to the truth. After all, everything is artifice and manipulation. I’ve always thought that cinema is a collection of small lies that all together become the honest-to-God truth.

–Documentary filmmakers who are references for your work. Films both documentary or fiction that have influenced you aesthetically.

I think a lot about the cinematic approach of the American director Frederick Wiseman. In films like Hospital, Le Ballet de l’Opera de Paris, and National Gallery, he films in cultural or social institutions for several months and then locks himself away in the editing room for an entire year to thoroughly review the footage. He finds the film in the editing room. Editing as a form of discovery. The filmmaker discovers his work as he visualises it. It’s like the sculptor who polishes the stone until the finished piece emerges.

I also want to mention the Russian Andrei Tarkovsky, a more fiction-oriented filmmaker than Wiseman, but one who, in films like Mirror or Nostalghia, blends documentary footage, and whose working method follows this approach of using a vast amount of filming material and meticulous editing. The filmmaker is the first to discover what lies hidden behind the ‘stone’. It’s an attitude towards cinema. Tarkovsky reminds me of Pablo Picasso’s attitude when he says, “I don’t seek, I find.”

From a Spanish perspective, I would highlight the figure of José Luis Guerín, the greatest Spanish filmmaker since 1977, a true master at always creating on the edge between documentary and fiction. On that edge, he discovers the poetic and brings us closer to the truth. We see this in Innisfree, Under Construction, and Train of Shadows, in my opinion his best work, where the filmmaker crystallises his vision after miles of celluloid and countless hours in editing

–How do the ideas for your films come about? Are there any particular interests in certain content or styles?

Sometimes it can be a poem, as in the case of Par les Soirs Bleus d’Été (On the Blue Summer Evenings). Here, Sensation, by the Frenchman Arthur Rimbaud, inspires me to contrast the depth of nature conveyed in the poem with the hectic pace of the big city.

In the case of Other Times, a test bed for the feature film Barcelona Tourist Walk, I used as inspiration and a starting point the photographic work Tourist Walk by photographer Marc Javierre-Kohan. It explores the phenomenon of mass tourism concentrated on Las Ramblas in Barcelona. I invented three fictional characters, all played by the same actress, Rosa Serra Torrens, and blended this staging with documentary footage we filmed in various tourist locations, the aforementioned photographs from the book, and also added archival images from the early 20th century of Barcelona. For me, this is a clear example where the purely documentary coexists and blends with fiction.

–How do you usually do your research and creative work?

It depends a lot on the type of project. In Lo Delta, a feature-length documentary work in progress about the rural world of the Ebro Delta, I’ve chosen to explore the area and its circumstances through regular trips, discovering everything little by little, interviewing farmers, harvesters, and fishermen. I’ve read and researched its history to better understand its reality, and at the same time, I’m filming its landscapes, its inhabitants, its traditions, its culture… It’s a slow process of constant learning. You don’t know how the film will turn out, but you do have a sense of the direction and the path to follow. A path that you refine as events unfold and the project progresses.

–Do you write a script or outline? What is the writing process like in development and pre-production?

In fiction, there’s a very precise script, but in documentaries, I use an outline. I have several general ideas and I gradually develop the film, adding new lines of interest as I get to know the place and the people. Above all, I pay close attention to the interviews, which open up new paths and suggest new horizons. In fiction, everything is pretty much fixed from the beginning; in documentaries, everything is very open until the end.

–How do you develop your work with characters and locations in your films? Do you have a specific method or approach?

In Other Times, with its three fictional characters, everything is meticulously written, rehearsed, and prepared; there is little room for improvisation. As for the locations of the three interviews (the Columbus Monument, the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, and Joan Miró’s sculpture Woman and bird), everything is controlled down to the millimetre. The camera angles and framing are discussed and rehearsed with the director of photography.

In contrast, documentaries allow for a lot of improvisation. You have to be very attentive to what arises in order to vary the camera angles and questions as the conversation progresses. For me, the key is knowing how to motivate the interviewee, look them in the eye, and let them feel your genuine interest in their comments. They need to feel comfortable and forget about the camera filming them and the microphone recording them. When that happens, people speak authentically and reveal themselves as they truly are. You have to be careful not to miss the best shots, those in which the interviewee ceases to be interviewed and becomes a person expressing themselves from within. Cameras, microphones, equipment… If you can strip them of all that, alone and face to face, that’s where you get the perfect shot.

–How do you approach rewriting during editing? How do your films change throughout the entire process?

Every film is alive until the very last moment. I see editing as the most creative part of the entire filmmaking process. All the stages are essential—the script, production, and filming—but it’s in the editing where the work is born. That’s where the film’s fate is decided. A mediocre shoot can end in a great film. A great shoot can end in catastrophe.

–In the field of sound, what is your style or way of working? What interests you? 

With a minimalist setup, I believe that in documentary filmmaking, less is more. I prefer the direct microphone-interviewee relationship. This is the formula I used in Other Times and Barcelona Tourist Walk. But microphones with a boom pole or hidden in a lapel can also work for projects that require it, as was the case with Signs of Identity, which I filmed in 2012. I also always work with the ambient sound of the filming location so I can amplify or incorporate other sounds in the editing process. In post-production, I’m particularly interested in color grading and sound design.

–Where have your documentary films been distributed and exhibited?

They have been shown at some fifty international festivals, in a few cultural venues and film clubs. And to date, the most remarkable achievement is that a Russian television network scheduled three prime-time screenings of Other Times in 2024 after it was selected for the Message to Man Festival in St. Petersburg and the Travel Film Festival in Moscow. We have also just signed a contract to broadcast Par les Soirs Bleus d’Été on TV. I also want to highlight that this latter film, inspired by a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, was recently selected for the Bloomsday Film Festival in Dublin, a festival specialising in literature and poetry. It was especially moving to hear Rimbaud’s poem in Joyce territory.

–Do you have a specific audience in mind when making the film?

Honestly, I don’t think about any specific audience. I’m very focused on doing things as well as possible and bringing out the best in myself. If I happen to think of an audience, it would be about showing my images to people with artistic sensibility, intellectual curiosity, and a passion for film.

–What are the production and financing methods for your documentary films?

Since 2020, through my own production company, Seny&Rauxa Docfilms. I’m an amateur filmmaker, and I believe that having my own production company is the most independent way to then distribute my work to festivals and television networks.

–How have these production and financing conditions influenced your creative freedom, thematically or formally?

The great thing about being an amateur is the enormous creative freedom. There are hardly any limits. The downside is how difficult it is to take projects off the ground and gain visibility. Self-financing is tough, and that’s why we’re working to secure public funding or other alternative funding sources that will help us produce better work and distribute future projects. Of course, we’re open to co-productions and partner producers.

–As an amateur author, how have you supplemented your income during production periods?

I combine my passion for film with my teaching profession. I am an English teacher and I run Britway, a school of English in Barcelona.

–What do you think are the main obstacles to making and producing a documentary in your country?

Funding is the biggest obstacle. On the one hand, documentary filmmaking is unfairly considered a minor art form, and on the other, culture is not a strong suit for either Spanish or Catalan politicians. A greater commitment to culture and the arts would be a good solution to improve the country’s cultural and artistic output. Artists are an asset to the country, but they need to be nurtured and supported, as many other countries do.

–How do you think it influences filmmaking from the periphery of the country?

It’s true that there’s more support and awareness in Madrid, since it’s the capital and it’s difficult for them to break free from centralisation. In the periphery, there’s less funding but greater creative freedom. Of course, you have to try to make films wherever you are. If you’re born in Catalonia, Andalusia, Galicia, or the Basque Country, it might be a bit more difficult, but in any case, we must keep shooting!!