Ione Atenea: “The house hid the history of some people, and I refused to throw it away”

Ione Athena (Pamplona, ​​1985) opens this Monday, March 14, in Pamplona Punto de Vista, the International Documentary Film Festival of Navarra, with the world premiere of his second feature film, “Horses Die at Dawn”which can be seen in the Official Section, although out of competition.

The film is born from its author’s fascination with a series of objects found in a house in a Barcelona neighborhood, belonging to a curious trio of brothers, Juanito, Rosita and Antonio García, with artistic inclinations. Starting from these traces of past lives, Athena reconstructs and imagines those lives.

We’ve talked to her.

How did the need arise to make a film with the material found in the house?

When I moved into the house, I immediately felt that there was a movie. An encounter was taking place that was interesting to me: two different times, two generations, two unknown families that met by chance in the same space.

But above all, through all these materials, the house hid the history of some people, and I refused to throw it away. All those objects were the only thing left of the Garcia family.

My plan was to keep all the material in the film, so that I could later remove it and thus have free space for the inhabitants of the present.

What was it that attracted you so much to the life or fragments of the life of this trio of brothers?

Above all, some photographs that I found scattered around the house: there are several mise-en-scenes, as if they were the shooting of genre films from the 1950s (western, film noir, war film), but in which I immediately recognized the three siblings. They are the protagonists of those possible films.

Among Antonio’s drawings, I found evidence that he used those images as a model for drawing, but I had an intuition that this was not the main purpose. When I talked to a student of the subject and showed him some of the images, he told me that he had never seen anything like it, that other cartoonists did not do it.

I had always sensed that they did it mainly for fun, that somehow they found refuge in those fictions.

How would you briefly define each of the protagonists of the film, Juanito, Rosita and Antonio García?

Antonio, the eldest, was a comic book artist, especially adventurers. He began in a self-taught way, as a child, when an accident kept him unable to walk for a year.

Rosita was an operatic singer and pianist, and as a young woman she was a magnificent horsewoman. They say that she was often seen walking around the neighborhood on horseback.

Juanito, the little one, was a fan of the magnificent seven, a petanque player, a joke teller and (in his words) a “movie watcher”.

‘Horses die at dawn’

Would you have liked to meet them? What would you have asked them, if you had the chance? What question about his life would you have liked to close?

Actually, I’m already sorry to have met them, I have that feeling. You can get to know a lot about people through materials like the ones I’ve found, and I like that our relationship has been like that.

If they were alive, I would never have made this film… But if I could ask the dead, I would have liked to ask their permission to make it. Actually, this is what bothers me the most.

As for the questions about their lives, in part I like to keep them open.

You say that, in your opinion, the most important thing for the brothers was the process of creation, that they did not seem to seek “success”. What is success for you in the field of creation, in this case the cinematographic?

For me, success in the field of creation has to do with feeling comfortable with what you do.

But in the movie, when I talk about how they didn’t seem to be looking for success, I mean I get the feeling that they weren’t looking for fame or money, that their creativity had more to do with personal processes, and I connect with that a lot.

How do you live, on the other hand, the process of showing the final result of your creative work?

It’s weird… I don’t really enjoy public exposure, but it’s an essential part of doing this. So, I keep the good, with the moments in which the public gets excited or thinks through the works.

It is very gratifying when people show you that your work has moved things for them.

You show in the film a kind of obsession with fitting together the pieces that form the fragments of the life of the García brothers. Once the film is finished and the file is donated, do you consider your relationship with the brothers to be over? How is the process of distancing yourself from something that has absorbed so much of your attention for years?

I think I need some air. I have had a very intense relationship, and a distance really comes in handy. I finished the film a little overwhelmed and with the need to get away, and I did it as much as I could. Above all, I needed to put the whole file aside, because I’ve spent hours and hours with it, and I wanted to rest.

Now, with the premiere, I have to think about the film again to be able to speak, and I think I already do it from another place, with another distance. I like to come back in that new way, I feel that it is necessary to close the process.

The film opens the Punto de Vista festival at home. I imagine it’s the perfect premiere for the play.

It is a very special festival for me, I almost dare to say that it is my favourite, so on that side I am delighted. But if I’m honest, it also overwhelms me a bit.

At the moment, I am not used to speaking in public, and going out for the first time in such a large room makes a great impression on me.

‘Horses die at dawn’

What future do you wish for “Horses die at dawn”?

First, I would like the movie to have as extensive a tour as possible through festivals, and hopefully there can be an international premiere.

In commercial theaters, distribution will be difficult, but I hope that later it can be seen in any other type of space, and that it reaches all the people who want to see it.

Do you have any other work in hand?

I have several things in mind, but they are still very initial ideas and I prefer to wait a bit, to have them a bit more advanced, before talking about them.