ALL WHO DISCOVER A TREE NAME IT AFTER THEMSELVES

Casa de Campo is one of the largest parks in Europe, and where I usually go for walks. On one of those long walks, I discovered at the center of the park and without signage, a small and lonely well-kept garden with a great variety of trees and a bronze Christ from 1940.

At that moment something was telling me that this space would likely have a particular history and, with no further knowledge, I showed up one morning to try to meet the people who frequented it.

On that first try I only met Modesto, an 84-year-old man. At that time, his task at hand
consisted of chopping up bread on a picnic area with the help of a rubber hammer, to feed the birds. I showed up a few days later with the intention of recording something. While Modesto worked on the maintenance of the garden, he muttered to me off-camera that the site dated from the time of the war. A week later, I showed up again at the location to continue filming, but Modesto began to distrust me, and told me that he did not want to be recorded. He explained that the garden had previously suffered some attacks for ideological reasons and did not want to be compromised. I clarified that I had no interest in making a movie that was a political pamphlet. With that explanation he became calmer and little by little we began to shoot.

What was interesting to me was finding out who and how these old people are, who on a daily basis frequent such a remote, traditional and religious place, with a clear connection with the Spanish Civil War and in particular with the national side.

As an Argentine, my attraction to the history of the Spanish Civil War began some time ago, upon observing that the conflict is still present in Spanish society and that it has left an important mark on several generations. What interests me is knowing and portraying the human condition of the people behind such complex situations as a civil war.
In this case, men from a generation who lived through those events in their childhood and who apparently were aligned with the Franco regime.

I do not work with staging, or multiple takes, let alone directing the protagonists. This makes it lose a certain technical and aesthetic preciousness, but it is worth to me knowing that it will gain in realism, closeness and somehow in truthfulness. The decision and habit of working in this way began during my years as a street photographer. Somehow, the uncertain and uncontrollable fascinates me. The magic of not knowing what is going to happen in front of my camera, as in life itself. The filming lasted for more than a year, shooting in this fashion, not knowing for sure what would be filmed each day.

What I found was a coexistence, at first glance cordial and friendly, but with a complex background marked by ideological differences between the protagonists, significant difficulties in communication, and above all, by the dilemma in which they debated between memory, forgetfulness and respect.
In Sagrado Corazón, the coexistence and leisure of these retirees seemed to revolve around gardening activities, a love for nature and the religious activities that are celebrated there. The promoters of that place showed me how important it was for them to re-signify that space, dissociating it from the conflict of the Civil War and from the national side.
 Over time, I became aware of the importance of tacit silence for the characters on certain topics and the desire to forget what happened in the same setting long ago, to the point of misrepresenting certain data. Somehow, for some of the protagonists, this silence was a necessary condition for coexistence and mutual respect.
Alongside, I found that in a natural, spontaneous and somewhat unconscious way, the desire to be remembered arose with great force and so did the memories of the conflict and the postwar period, which were determined to come to light again and again despite the efforts to silence them. The memories resembled the remains of shrapnel and the bunkers of the Casa de Campo, emerging from underneath the ground despite being buried. The conflict between the desire to forget and the need for memory appeared on numerous occasions.

My intention, based on all the situations that ensued during the film, is not to give an answer or a closed conclusion to the viewer, but rather for the viewer to come up with their own reflection on the matter. I do not claim that it is a documentary with a single reading or with a closed message. I prefer to give the viewer the freedom to draw their own conclusion and not impose my own reading on them.

I hope to raise questions about the role of forgetting, and memory, after such painful events.
If silence is the same as forgetting. If it’s possible to forget when memories keep emerging. What can be forgotten when human beings wish to be remembered.