"FAQ OR THE ROLLER COASTER" - (Atanes' thought development)

Up, down and start again. This is "FAQ". Shooting began wandering through the Fageda d'en Jorda with four people and a pot of lentils, and finish with the support of a small production, many tripods and many people. Post-production start filling the ashtrays with butts of a large company in Barcelona and finish in my home with the help of a manual of After-Effects that lends me a friend. Jump to the broadcast arena with the energy that comes with faith in what has been done, then crawl through the wasteland of unanswered emails and sometimes Kafkaesque circuit of festivals. Showing the film in public for hostility and contempt for one day, interest and praise another. The cheeks are full of bruises and carmine.

FAQ is mainly a love story, but also a science fiction film that critics like more than the fans of the genre. That far more interest to webmasters that the print journalists. Which receives more praise from the American public, both North and South, that the peasant. It has received, receives and receive vastly more support from individuals and small associations and groups that institutions of which has hardly received any. That is easier to see out of here than here, where it was designed. Which has a large minority audience potential, but with channels to reach that audience.

The video, low budget, a handful of excellent actors, a script that demands attention and begged to see the movie more than once, are ideal ingredients to cook a product atypical, different, risky, for some irritating for other psychotropic. But it also constitutes the perfect blend to run smack against a market needs based on photochemistry, pomp, the media star and plots aimed at the vulgarity. Are not these market needs unrelated to the needs of a significant part of the public ...? I think so.

A ten-day long shooting over a year. A three-year post. A real budget non deducible from viewing the film. It is indeed a strange path for a conventional movie, but very normal for what is not. FAQ gestation shares many common parts with other products that are being carried out under the same conditions: lack of resources, human beings put to flight in the middle of the process, uncertainty of the timing and, finally, economic and mental wear only manageable by romantic equipped with an irreducible obstinacy.

FAQ, this creature has been a wanted child is born, and even now remains in the incubator, and eventually straightening out the world because until you go home will have the support of two-parent loving addition to several sponsors, turn stubborn unyielding: Marta Timon -who began acting, he assumed leadership after the assistantship and ended up sharing the production with Oriol Marcos- and me. Two reasons are fueling this determination, after nearly five years up and down on the roller coaster: first, the conviction that FAQ is a film that deserved to be made, and it has a place among the other films that enjoy the privilege it can be seen and criticized by viewers. This has been stated many who have seen it. The second, the comforting feeling of being alone. More and more adventurers dare to digital film. More and more festivals are driven to open their doors to these formats. Increasingly the public is interested in them. This is evidence, and evidence is just imposing. Someday, sooner rather than later, reality will overcome prejudice.

To avoid ending up in messianic tone this review, I will conclude with an invitation to visit your website, look at we're doing. Surely FAQ will not ever in theaters, and it will take time before they see on television, but their DVD distribution is reasonable and desirable. Spread the word. We love to teach. Maybe some distributor wants to become rich with it and not us who run to stop it!

Carlos Atanes

Barcelona, 2005