‘Suro’ Director Mikel Gurrea on ‘Saints,’ Directing ‘The Belovd’ Star Victoria Luengo, Religious-Art Theft and Finding Mystery in Care

For director Mikel Gurrea’s latest he didn’t have to travel far in search of a story.

“I live in Barcelona’s district of Sants and, having done my previous film in the woods, this time I wanted to find fiction at my doorstep,” Gurrea told Variety of “Saints,” picked up for international by M-Appeal.

“So I started interrogating that name, Sants, which means Saints in Catalan.”

Related Stories

Sean Gunn Says He’s ‘Too Old’ and ‘Retired’ From Playing Rocket Raccoon in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’: It ‘Hurts After a While’

His curiosity led him to a church, a locked one.

“Every time I passed by, I found it closed. So I thought, a closed church is almost like a vault. Someone could steal it and I started reading about religious art robberies.”

But before the mechanics of the thefts could take over, the character of Lali arrived.

“The very first thing I wrote was Lali crying in a hospital chapel looking at the statue of a saint, at night. Once the other person in the chapel left, Lali dried her tears instantly, like an actress who was playing a role to get her way, she got up and stole the statue.”

Immediately, she was difficult to pin down: a thief who might also be grieving, a performer whose performance like the best of them still contains something real.

“There was an ambivalence there, a playfulness and perhaps some real sorrow too. I started following this character and everything else came from that scene.”

That ambivalence extends to Lali’s relationship with her estranged mother, Gloria played by Ariadna Gil (“Pans Labyrinth”). A woman whose instinct is to disappear finds herself wrenched back to Barcelona and into a role that demands precisely the opposite: staying put and caring for someone.

“The clash between duty (to have to care) and want (she wants to escape, be careless, be free). I found that tension very human and powerful.”

Playing Lali is Victoria Luengo, reuniting with Gurrea in this bigger production after “Suro.”

“Since ‘Suro,’ Victoria has become a dear friend. She happens to be one of the best actress that I have ever seen. So, I always want to work with her. When it was time, I offered her the part.”

At that point, Lali was still evolving. Luengo became part of that process, helping to build a character who exists caught between her restlessness and her responsibility.

“There was a draft of the script, but it was early stages. From that moment onwards, Victoria and I opened a process of workshopping ideas, trips to the desert where we first encounter Lali in the film, we gave Lali a past and we bounced many ideas. All of that influenced the later drafts Francisco Kosterlitz and I wrote for the script.”

With “Saints,” intimate family drama collides with thriller and heist movie. Within and between the competing genres is always care.

“There is a heart to the film: it is Lali’s relationship towards caring for her estranged mom Gloria. That is the internal. Then, there is an external journey, which relates to Rosario and her group.”

Rosario and her gang bring Lali into the world of theft, but their approach to stolen religious objects is surprising.

“That brings the thieving, the thrill and the heist, but also a knowledge of delicacy, appreciation and care. There is a certain ode to the gesture, which can connect to both the stealing and the caring.”

Soon, the distinction between Lali’s two worlds begins to collapse. “Little by little, Rosario becomes like an alternative mother” the director said, “and when her people get inside Gloria’s house, the layers converge.”

For Gurrea, these different versions of family and paying attention aren’t necessarily in opposition.

“I think they are related and they feed each other. The type of care that I wanted to explore in the film, we can only do it if we take the time to appreciate, if we take into account, if we feel a connection. Be it objects or people.”

That idea also complicates the film’s relationship with religion. The gang steals sacred objects, but their movements around them can resemble ceremony not desecration.

Researching religious-art theft, Gurrea came across Erik the Belgian, a notorious thief who targeted churches across Spain during the 20th century.

“The way he described the robberies – procedural, coordinated, silent – felt almost ritualistic to me. He also talked about the buyers’ feelings towards the stolen objects when delivered to them and it seemed like worship.”

An irresistible contradiction.

“I found these ideas very ambiguous and powerful and I wanted to explore them cinematically. After all, iconoclasm and idolatry could be understood as two faces of the same coin.”

Her encounter with sacred objects does not simply turn into a rejection of the Catholic world associated with her mother. Instead, it creates space for another kind of discovery.

“And here, between those two faces, between those two poles, Lali opens herself to some wonderment. Beyond duty and guilt, both very Catholic things, Lali discovers that she wants to be next to her mom in the last stages of their relationship.”

After the rural setting of “Suro,” “Saints” moves into the city. That shift was one of the few things the director planned from the beginning.

“The only really premeditated thing was to find fiction in the district where I live, so this was going to be an urban film.”

Its tone, however, tracks its elusive protagonist.

“I wanted it to be playful, because it is Lali’s nature.”

And underneath the family tensions, robberies and shifting allegiances, Gurrea kept returning to one idea.

“As per the rest, I wanted to make a film full of mystery. Both cinematic mystery but also playing with the idea of religious mystery.”