To hear a filmmaker like Isabel Coixet speak firsthand in times of the Gaudí, Goya, and Oscar awards is very much worthwhile. Those close to the Cornellà Creació Fòrum, where she has been invited to share her life, say that for Coixet, art in the broadest sense of the word is almost as important as anchovies or rice pudding. Born in Sant Adrià del Besòs, the film director defines herself as "a restless spirit with a lot of curiosity" or "a salmon that has always swum against the current." Her career began with a question that for many has already gone around the world: "And why not?" Or in other words, "What if…?" Allow me the cliché: lights, camera, and action.
Isabel Coixet studied History and started as an advertiser. Her father was an employee of the old Fecsa and her mother was a ticket seller at the Texas Cinemas. She learned to write screenplays with a film magazine from the Mercat de Sant Antoni. Advertising was her first great school of trade. "I wanted to make films, but I also wanted to earn a living. I applied lateral thinking to find unorthodox solutions," she asserts. Footnote: Lateral thinking, coined by psychologist Edward de Bono, involves seeking an alternative path to the conventional and solving problems creatively by challenging established logic. It's about breaking with the usual and exploring new paths with new perspectives. To put it plainly and in English: Think outside the box. And we add: Learning by doing. That is, thinking outside the box and learning by doing.
"I have been the worst businesswoman in history. Apart from Orson Welles, I have been one of the few in the history of cinema who has spent money on a film. I have made many films and I don't know who kept the money… Maybe it's better that I don't know because I get angry," she says amidst audience laughter. In addition to having worked with Pedro Almódovar or Jaume Roures and directed world-class actors such as Penélope Cruz, Juliette Binoche, Tim Robbins, Laia Costa or Emily Mortimer, among many others, she also recalls her conversation with Steve Jobs about Adam and Eve and the umbilical cord.
According to Coixet, being creative is being open to someone telling you something that in your head ends up transforming into something else. Paraphrasing the purest surrealism of the Count of Lautréamont, we are talking about the fortuitous encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine in an operating room. And yes, now let someone come and tell us slowly. "The idea is to mix something sublime, something banal, and something that is neither sublime nor banal," adds the filmmaker. And again, we ask ourselves: And why not? That is the question and that is the phrase that has largely moved hers and many other lives.
We arrive at dessert which, to top it all off, is rice pudding. Not even on purpose. Let's talk now about the human being and the world. Coixet once again awakens the public's interest by stating that "the human being has always invented great ways to screw up their life since the world began." And what is the world beyond the world? The reader will ask. The also publicist replies: "The world now denies you, it creates a mental cloud that prevents you from reacting to certain things. I don't think one has to talk and give an opinion on everything. The world is in constant contradiction and paradox." Seen this way, what a world we have left… But surely something can still be done.
And why does Coixet make movies? She tries to give a voice to people who do interesting things and she does it from the "sacrifice" of cinema. "Not being afraid also involves questioning many things," she points out. Believing in oneself implies having one's senses wide open. The filmmaker insists that "art and creation is a way of getting into the atmosphere of things that happen and seeing ourselves through the eyes of another person and with characters that are a bit like us, but not entirely. Cinema is quite intangible." Who hasn't seen themselves on the other side of the screen at some point? Cinema can make you feel, stir your subconscious, or move you inside. In two words: Come on, go. "You have to be open to things that are not directly related to us. That come on, go. I am not the most admired director in the world, but I have gained the affection of many people and I have connected with people who have nothing to do with me, as happened to me one New Year's Eve in Iceland," she concludes.
And as in the best screens, there is always a spectacular ending. In this case, we reveal which film Isabel Coixet would choose if she could only pick one: Things I Never Told You. Without forgetting My Life Without Me. She also confesses what has been the hardest shoot of her life: Nobody Wants the Night. She states that "all cinema is politics" and tells us that she would still very much like to make a film about the story of two women who fought against the Nazis artistically during World War II. Coming soon, in the best cinemas and on the best screens? Perhaps the art of filmmaking reminds us of the power of lateral thinking through an umbrella and a sewing machine found in an operating room. Perhaps we need a little less of screwing up life and a little more of come on, let's go.