The director from Tenerife proposes an original reinterpretation of El ladrón de los guantes blancos, with a current and valid narration and the additional contributionof Niki Weber’s music
Díaz emphasizes that “the intention has not been to restore the original film, but to respect it and put it in today’s language.“
The film, an original multi-screen proposal that transports the audience to another time with a playful and dynamic spirit, competes among the feature films selected in the Canarias Cinema section
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Saturday, April 15, 2023.- The premise is canonical: a heroic detective, a damsel in distress, a hooded bad guy. On these pillars a -silent- story could well be cemented for a movie in 1926, the year in which José González Rivero and Romualdo García made El ladrón de los guantes blancos (The Thief with the White Gloves). One of the first Canarian film productions, screened in La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which even traveled to Cuba. And a title with a halo of myth and legend in the island’s audiovisual industry, which director Eduardo Díaz has dared to reconvert into The Thief’s Dream, a film now competing among the feature films selected in the Canarias Cinema section of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival.
Díaz offers a multi-screen update of the original, with a seductive introduction of characters, the outstanding addition of Niki Weber’s music and an editing that gives a truly contemporary feel to the story. The final product is well suited to be screened under silent film formalisms, with live music and the audience hanging on the hero and villain.
The film initially fell into the hands of the filmmaker, but it was a copy not suitable for screenings. “Between the missing titles and the language it had, it is far from today’s audiences,” Díaz remarked. That was the starting point for his work, until he obtained an original and very contemporary result.
However, “this really began as a live show,” says the director. “My original idea was to try to locate the film, I saw it in the eighties when it was screened again. And I got a very low-quality copy. I considered doing a live show with that. It was the only way it would hold up on a screen.”
That being said, starting from there, “the first thing I did was to take the whole film apart, and then I began to compose it,” recalls the filmmaker. “Later I got a copy of a DVD, then a betacam and now this 4K. I really don’t know how people are going to take it,” he adds with a certain degree of unawareness, as if he had completed a small mischief.
Although Diaz stresses that “what I have done is to respect the film. I had the filmmakers behind my shoulder, every time I was editing. I hope they understand my proposal. There was also a pretension to move away from everything that is silent cinema. There is indeed a will to update it. I wanted to get away from old films, to contemporize them. To put it in today’s language. Though at the time I’m sure the public thought it had a lot of dynamism. But all that is diluted by the passage of time and by the evolution of language.“
The director is aware that “today we are also multiscreen, and that’s where I’ve worked. And we dare to use black, too, which sometimes fills half the image. There is also the question of space, of recreating real space. What I’ve done is to give back that feeling of physical space, so that the characters walk around the screens and interact with each other. You can also see the same space from one place and from the other, respecting the axis, of course, and even with moments in which there are some real stunts.”
Diaz stresses that “The Thief as an original film no longer exists as such. It is incomplete. And there are several editings. What I’ve done is to reuse images, fill in gaps and recreate the characters’ introductions.“
The music by Niki Weber incorporated into Diaz’s film is a real additional bonus. Because, he notes, “Niki is fantastic: the most complicated part of the film was finding a musician. I interviewed six or seven beforehand. But since I found Niki everything was much simpler, hecame to me as if he had fallen from the sky. I had some samples, although I’m not a musician, and we started from there, and then the work was sensational. We wanted to strengthen the emotional issues with the music, a little bit against the grain. To what is not expected. That leads you to take more risks, and to get more original solutions.“
The director explains that “our intention was not to restore the film. In fact, those scratches, stains, dust… I like them for what we wanted to do, with today’s tools.” And he recalls how “I made my first video when I was 20 years old, I come from Super 8. I’ve gone through all formats. Nowadays everything is easier. Before, the thought of making films in the Canary Islands was almost delirious. Now technology is very much with us.”
Díaz says it is “an honor” to be able to participate in the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. “I’ve never participated before, and I’m very happy. First, to see the audience’s reaction, especially the Canarian one. And then because I haven’t seen it on the big screen either. I have done this with my own resources, with only the support of the Filmoteca. Everything has been very handmade. And what I wanted was to update the film so that the viewer can feel today something similar to what the audience perceived then.“
Along the same lines, he adds that “cinema is another part of our cultural process. In this film there is also an attempt to recover our memory, to spread our film heritage. They, Rivero and García, are like our Lumière.”
For Diaz, the festival in the capital of Gran Canaria “seems to me to be the most open, with room for fiction, documentary or more experimental pieces. It’s very close, I love the Camera Obscura section. I would have really liked to go there with this live film, which is how it was born. For people who make films in the Canary Islands it’s very interesting. I’m very happy to have been selected. And also that it’ll be screened on a Sunday, because it is a Sunday film.”
SCREENINGS
DATE – TIME – SESSION – SCREEN
16 APRIL 10:00-11:10 JURY AND PUBLIC – CINESA EL MUELLE SCREEN 9
16 APRIL 17:30-19:00 Q&A | EDUARDO DÍAZ – CINESA EL MUELLE SCREEN 9
19 APRIL 18:00-19:10 LAST SCREENING – CINESA EL MUELLE SCREEN 4
Share this Post