In just two months, on November 29, Eduardo Casanova (Madrid1991) will release his third film as director. On the sidelineshis first foray into the documentary genre, has helped him have “a lot less fear of life and reality“.
After Skins and The mercyCasanova gets behind the camera to show the story of Moisés, a man who in 2010 it burned like hell in the heart of Madrid, revealing the reasons that led him to such an extreme act and that, until now, had never been told.
The director, who participates in the cycle of activities prior to the Feroz Awards 2025, says that he met Moisés more than a decade ago. He asked for the phone number but he didn’t dare.”to talk to him“Years later he began to be interested in her story. “When he told me what had happened to him it was like a punch in the mouth,” he remembers.
“When I recovered I realized that There was the most impressive story I could tell.“says the Madrid director. It has been six years of work almost in secret, following the story of the protagonist of the documentary chronologically. On the sidelines It is also a film that talks about the people who they live on the margins of society and that “they relate in a different way”, so “you had to be very careful” when approaching their stories, something that you acknowledge has been “complicated.”
“With this film the only thing I have dedicated myself to is observing and listening,” he says, something of which he feels very proud. “Before I had a hard time letting people talk, I was too stunned by what I was saying.” Now, he says, “he has learned to listen and receive from others.” “It has been very incredible for me and also very enriching for the film,” highlights Casanova, who adds that, above all, “it is a story that was necessary to put in the center because the mental health “It’s a very complex issue.”
Even so, Eduardo Casanova acknowledges that he began shooting the film “with very low expectations” because he believed that “I did not have the courage to show myself so naturally and so open to the public.” He was not used to revealing an image “that was not controlled and perfectly heeled”, without a set, without costumes and, above all, without a script written by him. “It is very difficult for me to restrict my freedom, but I have a great censor who is myself,” he admits.
But seeing the full story, according to Casanova, has changed the way he approaches life and, especially, his work behind the cameras. “I don’t think my cinema It’s going to be the same after this movie“. “It has made me reconcile myself with power give me more freedomwith learning to flow and realize any real story is more bizarre than any fiction,” says the director. “I have not controlled what happens and that has made me relax a lot.”
After filming this documentary he is convinced that, when he has no ideas, he will be able to “go out into the street with a camera” and he will find them, something that helps him live. “Much calmer and much more comfortable” with a real life in which he has not always seemed to fit. The mercythe film that opened this Friday in Pontevedra the cycle of activities prior to the Feroz 2025 Awards, “talks about a boy locked in a beautiful glass cage and trying to get out of it.” “And I’ve felt like that boy, or even like his mother.”
After having rolled On the sidelinesemphasizes that he feels “completely out of that cage” and has “much less fear of life and reality.” He doesn’t care about the criticism either because, laughing, he warns that he is capable of “getting greener” than what people give him. “Already I flagellate myself enough. I have always been very critical of myself. But now I’m happy,” celebrates Eduardo Casanova, currently focused on his work as a director and screenwriter and who, for now, has decided to put aside his role as an actor.
He has only returned to her on rare occasions, “ever for money“, in recent years but “especially out of friendship” with Manolo Caro, with whom he collaborated on several episodes of The flower house either someone has to diebecause, as he claims, his “it has never been acting”. “I don’t feel like an actor, which doesn’t mean I won’t do it again, because life has its own life and you never know what’s going to happen,” says the Madrid director.
