El embrujo del Quijat, directed by Chumilla-Carbajosa and starring the theatre actor Rafael Álvarez “El Brujo”, was presented this Monday, 24 October, as part of the DOC. España section, with the presence of the director.
Chumilla-Carbajosa took part in the presentation and subsequent discussion of this documentary in which the main character is alienated trying to stage Don Quixote of La Mancha. His obsession is to prove the Arab origins of the novel, as Cervantes himself claims in chapter IX of the book, attributing its authorship to a certain Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian. The director travels in search of answers while “El Brujo” rehearses his show with the intention of revealing his surprising discoveries to the world.
According to Chumilla-Carbajosa himself, “the important thing is that the film explains itself”. “A narrative game has been planned that in a certain way reproduces the narrative structure of Cervantes’ work, in which the author is played with inside the novel”, the director declared.
The work is based on a play by Rafael Álvarez. “We managed to put the camera at eye level with “El Brujo” while he was doing live theatre, and I think that’s very difficult to achieve,” admitted the director. About the documentary itself, he explained to the audience that “there is this game of cinema within cinema, that the part that is understood as the making of is within the film and speaks of this dichotomy of the plane of reality and the plane of the imagination. This has a lot to do with the character of Quixote, that is basically the narrative structure, which is a bit different from the usual”.
