"If you don't know what to do, go back to doing what you liked when you were a child"

In the life of Ibon Cormenzana there is a scene that, as in cinema, changes almost everything, or gives a new meaning to the initial plot. He is running through the mountains of Mont Blanc, after more than thirty hours of effort, in a race that is not official because he did not get a bib number. It's cold, he's tired and there are still kilometers to go. Suddenly, at some point along the route, a friend appears with food. Later another appears. And another.

At that moment, he says, he understood something that he was missing to complete his own theory of life. "I thought: this is no longer collaborating. This is sharing."

Producer, director and founder of Arcadia Motion Pictures —the production company behind titles such as Blancanieves, As Bestas or Robot Dreams—, Cormenzana until now recounted his career based on three C's: running, creating and collaborating. Three words that describe his three professional lives. But a little over a year ago he added another: sharing.

And that is what he does now. In the latest Esmorzar de Forquilla organized by the Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona, before a small group of people and behind closed doors, he shares his life and professional trajectory and presents the project that today concentrates a good part of his energy: Mundo Cero, an initiative that seeks to promote positive social change through audiovisuals.

— Your career starts very far from cinema.

— Yes. I studied Economics because my father convinced me. I really liked sports and wanted to study INEF, but he told me: "Numbers will serve you for many things in life." And over time I have seen that he was right.

— And you ended up working at Arthur Andersen.

— Yes, in Corporate Finance. I worked in Houston, then in London and finally in Barcelona doing company mergers and acquisitions and restructurings. It wasn't my passion, but I learned a lot.

— What did you learn?

— Effort, discipline, resilience, personal empowerment... Values that, in fact, I relate a lot to running.

— Running. The first of the C's.

— That's right. It's about striving to improve yourself and thinking that you can go even further.

— And the second C, cinema? How does it sneak in among finances?

— When I was working in London I saw an advertisement that said: "Learn to be a filmmaker in eight weekends." It was done by professionals who worked with Terry Gilliam. And I thought: during the week I work, on weekends I learn cinema.

And I started shooting short films, until I had to make a radical decision.

— Leave everything.

— Yes, I wanted to make a film. And a film that I could no longer make only in my free time. I decided to change my life.

— It's your first film, Jaizkibel, which addressed adolescent suicide.

— Yes, a very personal film. I had had suicidal thoughts when I was thirteen or fourteen and I wanted to talk about that.

— Yes. I saw cinema as a tool to talk about deep life issues, to try to show things that worried me and that perhaps could help other people. And many times a director's first film is a bit like that: healing and bringing out things from your own story.

— And at some point you also start producing.

— Yes. Thanks to the fact that I came from the world of numbers. When I started going to festivals with my first film, I met many talented directors who had no relationship with production companies or producers. And I saw that I could help.

— This is how Arcadia Motion Pictures was born, producer of films such as As Bestas, Blancanieves and Robot Dreams.

— It's been more than twenty years now and we have produced more than forty films and several series.

— Until a personal turning point arrives.

— Yes. About thirteen years ago I went through an unwanted separation. Professionally I was doing very well, but personally I was a bit lost.

— And what makes you react?

— An artist friend of mine told me something very simple: "If you don't know what to do, go back to doing what you liked when you were a child."

— And what was that?

— Running.

— Here returns the first of the three C's.

— Exactly. I started running through Collserola. At first, climbing up to Santa Maria de Vallvidrera already seemed like a huge challenge. But over time I ended up doing very long races, like the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc.

— What does running bring you?

— Resilience, self-improvement, empowerment… To trust myself again. At that moment, it helped me regain the desire to direct.

— The man who started running.

— That's right. Running led me to make this documentary: the story of preparing for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc to raise money to build water wells in a village in Ethiopia.

— And this is when the third C appears: collaborate.

— Of course, because the documentary ends up going much further than the film. We started doing screenings with a discussion afterwards, in town halls and other spaces. And in the end, we raised more than 200,000 euros and built more than 200 water wells.

There I clearly saw that audiovisuals could be used to collaborate with people who need it.

— Is that the germ of what Mundo Cero is today?

— Yes. Mundo Cero, which I created three years ago, is a project that aims to promote positive social change through audiovisuals.

— And how does it work?

— We produce films associated with NGOs and part of the income is allocated to specific projects.

— For example.

— We have made Cuatro Paredes, about the poverty of single mothers with Save the Children. Or Hate Songs, about the Rwandan genocide with UNHCR. Or Viaje al país de los blancos, a co-production with Antena 3 and A Contracorriente, which tells the story of Ousman Umar.

— And now Mundo Cero also includes a creative residency in the Basque Country.

— Yes. We have bought a house in Orduña, the town where my grandmother worked, and there we want to create Casa Mundo Cero.

— What exactly will happen there?

— The idea is to create an incubator for audiovisual projects with social impact. Young producers and directors will be able to come with their projects and work for a few months with mentors from the sector.

— With what idea?

— To develop talent. I would like many more people to be doing this type of project. And I believe that involves helping to develop talent and education.

— How do you define your Cs?

— Running is the body. Creating is the mind. Collaborating is the soul.

— And sharing?

— It's what gives meaning to everything.