Spain has selected the film as its entry for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, placing it at the centre of conversations about Hollywood’s upcoming awards season. Netflix began its US theatrical release on 16 October in four cinemas, two in New York and two in Los Angeles, with a wider distribution planned for the following days.

The film interweaves three stories about gay men at different moments in Spanish history. Its origins lie in The Dark Stone (La piedra oscura), a stage play by Alberto Conejero about Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, Federico García Lorca’s companion, and a young soldier during the Spanish Civil War. Research led the directors to The Black Ball, an unfinished work by Lorca of which only four pages survive.

Drawing on those fragments, Calvo and Ambrossi constructed a story connecting the memory of repression with the lives of those who inherited its consequences. The cast brings together Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Milo Quifes and Carlos González, alongside Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close.

The two filmmakers have spent years working together as screenwriters, directors and producers. During the filming of The Black Ball, they ended their romantic relationship after 13 years together, but continued to collaborate professionally. In this conversation, they explain how they found their leading actors, what Lorca’s poetry meant to them and why they decided to turn a profoundly Spanish story into a film with universal ambitions.

 

Q. What does it mean to you to achieve success with a Spanish-language film?

Javier Calvo: A great deal. An enormous amount. We are very proud of our history, our culture and the people of our country. Being able to take something as Spanish as The Black Ball beyond our borders is a source of pride for us. Seeing people connect with the story and its characters, and watching them want to learn more about Lorca or our country’s history, is beautiful.

Q. How did this project come about?

Javier Calvo: I read Alberto Conejero’s The Dark Stone during a flight. I was moved from the very first monologue. Sebastián talks about the bombing of his village, how much he loves his mother and how he used to play in the local band. All those images came into my head. I wondered why the play was affecting me so deeply, and I thought it was a sign.

Q. What happened after that first reading?

Javier Ambrossi: When Javier told me about the play, we agreed to build something from it. The text referred to Federico García Lorca’s unfinished works, which led us to investigate his writing.

Q. What did you discover about The Black Ball, the unfinished play that gives your film its title?

Javier Ambrossi: There are only four pages of The Black Ball. The first two contain a list of characters, and the other two feature the scene between Carlos and his sister at the beginning of the film. It is a scene at the piano in which they discuss the differences between men and women and the issues they faced at the time. That is all that survives. We kept that scene and followed the list of characters. It mentioned skiers, snow and other details. We used the list to pay tribute to Federico García Lorca, with all our admiration, love and respect.

We realised that we were also telling our own recent history. We wanted to explore how much the past shapes us and pay tribute to those who came before us, particularly the LGBTQ+ community. Our rights rest on a great deal of suffering, and we wanted to acknowledge that.

Q. Lorca’s poetry runs through the film. What did it bring to the project?

Javier Calvo: Poetry can be interpreted in many ways. When you return to a poem, it can resonate with you in a new, different and unique way. The poem featured in the film was with us throughout the entire process. It reminded us that hatred and intolerance are still with us. That is why we felt this was a story worth telling now.

Q. How did you put the cast together?

Javier Calvo: We approached it from a place of admiration. When I write dialogue, I always need to have someone’s voice in my head. Perhaps I meet you, and when I later write about a journalist, I think of that woman we met who had that particular phone case. We like people. We love observing them. Even if they never end up playing the character, we have someone in mind.

We have a board covered with little photographs of the people we are thinking about, and we keep looking at them to see what kind of mix we can create, what sort of cocktail we are putting together. How great that we have Guitarrica, who is a singer, and Miguel, who is very famous among younger audiences but whom we know to be exceptionally talented. Let’s give him something to do, a role with real maturity. Here we have an open slot that we can offer to Milo, whom we already know. Génesi, a wonderful, hilarious trans actress, comes to mind, and then suddenly we say: what if we put Glenn Close here? And we tell ourselves: “I would watch this film.”

Javier Ambrossi: We look for a combination that will appeal to audiences, mixing new faces with people they have known for years, because that creates wonderful chemistry. Pairing newcomers with experienced actors tends to be a good match. One brings freshness, the other experience. They can learn from each other, and it is beautiful to watch.

Q. What is your favourite book in Spanish?

Javier Ambrossi: The Savage Detectives by Roberto

Javier Calvo: The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca.

Q. How did you find Guitarricadelafuente to play Sebastián?

Javier Calvo: We were fans of his. One day, at the Primavera Sound festival, we approached him and asked whether he would like to make a film with us. He thought we were talking about music and asked whether we wanted him to compose the soundtrack. We told him we wanted him to star in the film. When he joined the project, we did not even have a script yet. We wanted to write it with him in mind, as a gift expressing our admiration for his work.

Q. What were you looking for in him to play a young soldier during the Spanish Civil War?

Javier Calvo: We imagined a young soldier with a connection to music who would have to learn to play an instrument. We did not want to fake that relationship with music; it had to be part of who he was. We were looking for sad, beautiful eyes, a gaze that could convey the war and the character’s soul.

Q. The film has an unusual scale for an LGBTQ+ story. Did you want to make a political statement?

Javier Ambrossi: There is a political statement in making a large-scale, ambitious, openly gay period drama. Sometimes it seems that LGBTQ+ films are expected to be small, independent productions aimed at a specific audience. We wanted to make a big film in Spain, as big as we possibly could.

Q. How did you deal with the challenges of a production on this scale?

Javier Calvo: Every day on set was a battle. There were so many details, extras and period locations. It was very difficult. The bombing sequences were done for real, without computer-generated effects.

Q. What has surprised you about the film’s international reception?

Javier Ambrossi: It has made me very happy, and it has surprised me, too. This is a very Spanish story, rooted in our literature, our history, the Civil War and Federico García Lorca.

Javier Calvo: The response outside Spain has taught me that if something truly matters to you and you have felt it deeply, there is a chance that many other people will feel it, too.

Q. What does it mean for a story born out of Spanish historical memory to enter the Oscar race?

Javier Calvo: We live in a world that is increasingly connected through social media, yet we make less and less effort to understand one another. The film explores the dangers of a lack of communication and how it can lead us into terrible situations. We wanted to tell a story capable of connecting with people from different places and generations.