No mires a los ojos opens the 67th Seminci with its adaptation of the universe of Juan José Millás: “You have improved the novel”.

“You have improved the original novel”. This is how Juan José Millás referred to No mires a los ojos, an adaptation of his book Desde la sombra (2016), which opens the 67th Seminci this afternoon, during the film’s press conference, attended by the writer himself, its director, Félix Viscarret, and the actors Paco León, Leonor Watling, Àlex Brendemühl, Susana Abaitua and María Romanillos in a packed hall.

No mires a los ojos tells the story of Damián (Paco León), a carpenter who has just been fired after twenty years working in the same company. His reaction, furious and somewhat violent, leads him to run away and hide in the first place he finds when he leaves the workshop: a cupboard loaded in a van that ends up in the house of Lucía (Leonor Watling) and Fede (Àlex Brandemühl), a couple of Damián’s age who live with their teenage daughter, María (María Romanillos). Damián decides to stay hidden there and participate in the family’s life as a shadowy entity.

“The character of Damián seemed to me to be a sweet,” said León, whose incursion into a dramatic role far removed from those he is used to playing has been an acting challenge, faced “with fear, but also with great enthusiasm”, which he hopes will be a turning point in his career. “I think it’s the first time I’ve ever read a script in one sitting”, confessed the actor, who also received praise from his co-star, Leonor Watling.

Watling, who plays a “bewildered and lonely” woman, emphasised the finesse of both the original text and the film adaptation, whose change of title with respect to that of the novel responds both to the attempt to avoid the public confusing it with a story of a different register and to the similarity of what is told with the song No mires a los ojos de la gente, by the group Golpes Bajos.

The film crew also referred to the incursion into the project of the journalist Iñaki Gabilondo, who plays himself in what is his first appearance as an actor in a film in which he shares a wardrobe with Paco León and laughs at the public’s own image of him. “The guy knows how to seduce, he has charisma”, described León.

After its run at the Seminci, No mires a los ojos will hit Spanish screens on 4 November, when viewers will be able to enjoy an adaptation that has trimmed as much as possible from the original text “without touching any master beams”, as Millás himself praised.