All language subtitles for Lo.Perdido.2020.SPANISH.1080p.WEBRip.x264-VXT

I dream I am swimming.

When I swim in the sea I feel free.

My mom taught me how to swim.

My mom always liked travelling,
taking photos, recording.

My mom and I travelled
to Buenos Aires

to visit my brother
who worked there.

We would be together once again,
the three of us.

We arrived on December 24th 2014,
in the morning.

The day after, at number 1326

of Moreno street at 5:50 a.m.

my mom

stopped breathing.

You could still feel her warmth,
if you moved closer to her.

I closed her eyes.

What has been lost

It seems she is sleeping.

She is dreaming.

My mom's name was María.

She closed her eyes

and the world is still going.

Her mouth was mine,
she doesn't kiss me anymore.

The echoes or her loud
laughter fainted,

and how cruel is that silence
which makes me feel so bad.

That merciful sweetness
of her hands was mine,

hands which caressed
my sorrows kindly.

Now I recall her,
inmerse in my devastation,

braided tears refusing to arise.

I do not have the comfort
of being able to cry.

Why your wings, so cruel,
burned life?

Why this sinister face of luck?

I wanted to shelter her
but death was more powerful.

How the wound hurts, deepening.

I know that now strange faces

will come offering
handouts of relief to my anguish...

Throughout her life,
my mom had many photos taken.

I made some of them myself.

One of the last ones,
half and hour after her passing.

The last one, two weeks after
when her body was rotting.

Neither my brother or me
can forget that image.

My loved ones, the ones
that shaped part of my childhood

started to die and they all did
so just in one decade.

My mom's phone calls:

“Grandma passed away”.

“Aunt Regina died.
We will take her to Tarancón”.

My brother calls me:

“Dad has died”.

And my mother a year ago.

One month after her death,
we threw some of her things away,

and kept some others.

Seeing these objects,

I immediately identified Regina,
my great aunt.

She was like a second mother
to my mother.

My grandfather had camera
similar to this till he died.

What if Regina had kept it?

I have this photo among
my childhood memories.

Maybe it was the first photo
taken with this camera.

Regina, extremely young,
leaning her hand on the chair;

my grandfather, well dressed,
wearing a tie.

His brothers and parents
also appears.

The Solera family,
including Quinito, the cat.

1937.

In a yard of Tarancón...

which doesn't exists any longer;

it was demolished soon
after recording this image.

I developed films found
among the boxes.

I discover a photo of my father,
I took it myself.

Not even at the end
of his life was I able,

except for one occasion
he was sedated in a hospital bed-

to hold his hand tightly
and tell him I loved him.

My parents lived on the same street;

nevertheless, they started
their relationship in a hospital.

How many times
would they bumped

into each other
before that encounter?

Would they greet each other?

Did they pay attention
to each other,

when coming back from work

or when they went shopping?

Their first date: "Doctor Zhivago".

They watched it
at the "Cinema España",

a movie theatre to which
my father frequented

after work at
the slaughterhouse finished,

those double bills:
one about romans, one western.

Maybe here lies the common passion
my brother and I share for movies.

Raúl, tell us about "Dr. Zhivago"!

"Doctor Zhivago" is about,
I don't know!

About revolutions, battles, wars,
there is a bit of everything

in there, different stories,

but, above all, it is about love;
that is the important thing!

Lara and Doctor Zhivago.

There is another woman, but what
matters is Lara and Doctor Zhivago.

They fall in love, they have sex
and they have a daughter.

A little bit of everything
happens there.

In three hours, imagine!

In the end, they lost touch.

And that final sequence
in which Doctor Zhivago

is on the tram,
he sees Lara in the street,

he gets off the tram,
runs after her,

and dies right there
of a heart attack,

How terrible!
It is horrible,

it makes pum! and he dies.

Fucking sad it is, sad,

but, do you know
what is the important thing?

It is that my mom and dad
loved the movie,

when they went to watch it,

and they loved it so much
that thanks to that I am here now.

Then, how on earth am

I not going to like
"Doctor Zhivago"?!

Of course, I like it!
I love "Doctor Zhivago"!

My grandparents got married

and lived in Barcelona
during the civil war.

I wonder what stories
there are behind these photos;

a lot of them... will remain hidden.

That's it, thank you!

Is that it? Ok!

It is curious.

I cannot find photographs
in which war

is depicted with rawness.

It was there, but in the photos,

he surely sent to
his parents and his sisters,

grandpa never wanted
to show pain but hope;

“Mediterranean: sister lands
or cemetery for the poor?”

he was not a reporter,
but a father of a family.

Then, it was the first time

the civilian population
was bombed during a war.

People ran to shelters
and hid themselves

there until planes went away.

My father was born
during in a bombing,

in april 1938,

in the factory where
his father Francisco worked

as a caretaker in
Puente de Vallecas.

Regina and José Luis lived
very close to there.

José Luis was Regina's last partner.

When we were kids,
we often went to their house

and had lunch with
them in bank holidays.

They told us stories about the
civil war and the post-war years.

Above all, José Luis,

who was a republican soldier.

Regina sometimes mentioned casually
her first boyfriend, Pepe;

he died very soon, just after
being released from prison.

“To my beloved Regina...”

Regina worked as a nurse in
"el Hospitalillo" during the war.

"El Hospitalillo" was one of
the hospitals in Tarancón.

How many were there?

It is supposed there could be
two or three hospitals;

it is not very clear.

They are blood hospitals;
this existed long before the war.

There is a battle,
there are a lot of wounded

and a lot of locals employed here;

among them,
Regina, your great aunt.

There was a lot of staff
working as cooks, nurses,

and even doctors from
the civil health network

also were incorporated
to these tasks.

From the nineties it ceased to be
used, at the end of the nineties,

and right now
it is quite dilapidated.

One day, when I was visiting
Regina and José Luis' tombs,

I found out that one Allan Craig
died in "el Hospitalillo".

What if she was with him
in his last moments,

when his life was slipping away
so far from

his motherland and his people?

Allan Craig was an
international brigade member

that left Dundee, in Scotland,

with his brother to fight
against fascism, here in Spain.

He died due to friendly fire;

he found himself among
the front lines

and was wounded by
the Republican fire.

He was transferred here
to Tarancón to a hospital

and died two days after.

Allan junior has been seventy years
looking for his father.

At the end of the seventies

remodelling and expansion
of the cemetery is decided

to put all that zone to use,
build niches, etc...

Everything was removed.

I will never forget Allan's face

when he arrived here and asked me:
“Where is my father?”

and I answered him:
“Your father was thrown to the dump”.

For my mother -I am into this
due to my mother-,

it was very important to see her
father and her grandpa in a plaque.

Bear in mind
that acknowledged,

when judge Garzón
was compiling data,

around one hundred and something
thousand victims came out,

but I ́ve just told you

that I don ́t know how many
are missing on that plaque,

I don ́t know how many people
who died in Cuenca capital

are missing nor do I know how many
died in villages due to torture.

I said it this morning, even mourning
has been denied to these people.

And that is deliberate because
without mourning,

they are left vulnerable,
stigmatized, separated...

This personal history of mine
goes much further;

it goes beyond personal matters,
and gets into collective ones,

fundamentally, because I noticed
that there were people

with an incredible burden of fear

and it was worth it to make
an effort to lift a bit,

some centimetres, that tombstone
of fear they had on.

It is a very rewarding experience.

It seems unbelievable

that in 2016,
in an European democracy

we have gathered here
in a ceremony of collective mourning

and tribute
–so many years postponed–

in memory of dozens of people,

I stress, people,

spread people, people
who disappeared in the dump,

lots of them, here,
in the seventies:

bodies without names

and names without a gravestone
that remembers them.

A memory whispered
for so long, only in private.

It doesn ́t seem to be true,
but here we are,

asserting loudly their existence,
through their memory.

Here are the names of the victims,

all of them guilty of
a crime of republicanism

of thought, word, work and deed,

guilty of transforming
a recurrently unfair society

in a more accessible
and equable place,

victims so deliberately forgotten,

physical and metaphysical
victims of a dictatorship

that tried to eliminate
their body and their soul.

Recovering their bodies
was never allowed,

a place to mourn them
to honour their memory

was never provided.

But that memory cannot
be based on a lie

which is aware of
the imbalance of presenting

only part of the victims
in the public space,

it cannot be based
on denying bread and salt

to a great part of
citizens of this country,

it cannot be based
on a spread disease

of the Spanish conservatism,

the disease of nostalgy,

unfortunately,
the nostalgy of a dictatorship.

One last thing I must say
is that this country, this democracy

must have enough dignity
as to honor all its dead,

also the ones murdered

defending the democratic
and constitutional legality

of the second Republic.

"Salud y República" for everyone!

José Sinde Gómez, Pepe.
Who was he really?

Why did Regina keep
so many memories of him?

Why do I need to bring them
to light now?

If they had told me,

I wouldn ́t have believed it,

that they would be separated,

and each following
their own way, honey,

your love and mine.

We were two in one,

in the path of eternity,

and that, my love,
no one wants to remember.

Each one following their own way,

oh my god, what a pain!

Our path it is not one of roses,
but of thorns.

Increasing the distance,
we slowly die,

both of us without
it seeming important,

as if we were crazy...

On a piece of paper saved by Regina,
Pepe wrote some dates.

Among them, my eye catches one.

“12 November 1939,
first date with Regi”.

They must have met here.

She was a maid;
she lived in the attic.

He, a house painter,
was with his uncles, sort of hiding.

They could arrest him at any moment,

because during the war in 1937

he changed sides
to republican Spain,

fleeing from the nationalists.

They were together
just a few months.

I read other dates he wrote
on that piece of paper:

I was arrested 10th February 1940.

24th February 1940,
my uncle José Gómez Osorio,

was executed, basely murdered.

30th March I was sentenced to death

and 11th May 1940 I signed
twenty years and one day...

Saint Rita prison.
12th September 1940.

We, the ones who fought
for people’s freedom

were forced to succumb,
giving way to the murderers...

On this postcard
you appear very sad.

What ́s wrong?

Forget those disdainful faces
that look at you with suspicion.

I know that you suffer a lot;

I suffer too,
one is not made of stone, but,

what would relative freedom,

as the one I had when
I was with you, be worth?

No, my love.
I want a well-defined freedom

to fully enjoy the delights of love
without anyone

having any reason to point at me.

This is the life!

We are on the last step
and will soon be completely happy...

He got out of jail too late.
In January 1944. He was sick.

He died 19th June 1945.

He was buried in "La Almudena"
cemetery the day after.

His remains are not there anymore;

they ended up in a mass grave.

I found another letter,
mixed up among Pepe’s;

it was from Alejandro,
my great-grandfather.

Tarancón,

19th June

1944.

Dear children:

Just a couple of lines.
We wish you to be well.

I am not feeling

so good.

So far, pain won ́t leave me
unless I have an aspirin;

so, I have all kinds of moments:

more often bad than good ones.

We will wait to see
the effects of the injections I need.

My appetite
- as my wish for anything-

is going slowly.

The only thing I eat with
certain satisfaction, little though,

are

stewed potatoes.

If you had the possibility

of getting some,
from one place or another,

you could send some kilos,
because they aren’t any here...

My great-grandfather died
two months after.

Increasing the distance,
we slowly die,

both of us without
it seeming important,

as if we were ...

crazy.

Do you remember when
Regina was hospitalized,

after José Luis’ death?

I went to the hospital and there
were lots of people. It was a chaos;

her bed was in
the middle of a corridor.

She was telling me incoherent things
such as I need to get up,

I have to help the wounded because
they have bombed, I am a nurse

and it was because she thought
that she had come back

to "el Hospitalillo" in Tarancón,
that she was back there,

it was the civil war
and she had to help the sick...

Regina, as she didn ́t
have any studies,

she couldn ́t be
a nurse after the war.

She had no choice

but to go to work as a maid
to Madrid and leave Tarancón.

Allan Craig, José Luis,
Pepe, Regina.

I must not forget them.

I don ́t want to forget them.

Now we are their memory.

Today I ́ve dreamt of mom.

I was at Regina’s house.

Dad was in bed, dead.

Regina seemed calm.

I told her in a low voice:
“We have to call mom”.

And she looks at me and she answers:
“You are talking nonsense.

Your mom is dead as well”.

Suddenly mom appeared behind us
as if she was a vampire.

And I woke up.

Yes, I have dreamt of her as well.

I don’t remember very clearly,
but I saw her as a zombie,

as walking in a vegetative state
through the corridors

without speaking and
without looking at you.

She was dead;

I felt grief seeing her in that way
because it was not her,

she was full of life
and that wasn ́t her.

I don ́t want to remember
her like that.

I discovered some photographs

of a friend from Barcelona
in an album on a rainy Sunday.

At the end of the album, a letter

it was her address in the nineties.

Would she still be there?

Could I contact her again?

I rang the intercom twice;
they weren ́t there.

I decided to leave them
a message in the mailbox.

Something like:
“I am Mari’s son; my mother is dead.

I would like to recover
contact with you”.

She called me the next day.

We arranged to meet
the next weekend

I would go to Barcelona.

It would be reunion

with her, with my mother.

Even though we didn ́t write
to each other for a long time;

I kept you, look,

you have the proof
I kept this piece;

I didn ́t want to see the other one.

I guess I removed it and broke it.
No, no, no.

I was very young.

One person,
a friend of yours from always;

because you have friends that
although you aren ́t with them,

you keep them inside.

Some day we might
see each other or not

and being told this person
has died, well, honestly.

Very tough...

My father died
when I was three years old.

He died at the age of 37.

- Have you got any memories of him?
- No.

Anything your mother
told you about your father?

Yes.

Tell me!

My mother said that my father’s
passion was to have a daughter

and as years were going by he said:

“This girl, if she likes dancing,
she will only dance with me”.

It was passion, but memories, no.

I have a picture in which my father
took me to "La Barceloneta";

the water, it was too deep for me

and he carried a bucket of zinc,

he filled it with water
and I went into it with the shovel.

See?

My mother’s first communion.

22nd May 1954.

Regina and the others
are dressed in black

because two of their
brothers had died;

by then, grandpa was
very ill already.

He couldn’t make it
to the ceremony.

My mother always told us

that she went home with the dress
of the first communion

on so that he could see her.

She didn’t tell us

maybe because
she did not remember it-

is that my grandpa
took the camera for the last time

and took this photo of her.

A lot of times, when
we talk like that about my father,

I don’t know why
it comes to my mind;

I only remember that.

What they call
landing of a stair,

which back then
were called "replanes",

in the "replà" of the stairs,

I am in a corner
and I see the coffin pass by;

I only see that,
I am there in that corner,

but of course then I think:

“I was three.
How can I remember that?

How can a girl so young

go down five steps
and be there in that corner?”

It’s something that comes from
my imagination or it’s true or...

but I have never been
able to know it.

My mom remembered
a happy funny father.

At least that’s what she told me.

What will I remember
of her from now on?

My mother always
wanted to have a daughter.

She ended up having three!

How did you meet her?
What was your first...?

It is easier for me,
but I don ́t know

if you are going to be able...
- She met us.

She met us in my mother’s belly,

since we were born.
She took care of us.

When my mother became
pregnant of my sisters,

as two babies were coming,

one great-grandmother,
my aunt Amina, said:

“There is a totally trustworthy
woman to give you a hand”.

As she was more
than familiar to our family,

she came into our house
and never left.

Mom told her that

she wanted a person

who would be there until
we would be fourteen years old.

It’s true.

She was still pregnant with us

and Mari said: “Oh, yeah, great”.

And my mother said:
“Well, that’s it”.

The day you turned fourteen
years old she said: “I'm going”.

She had been saying it
for more than a year.

“The day you’ll be fourteen
I will retire forever...”

And she endured it.
She had kept her word.

She was such a capable
and determined person,

who loved us so much.

My father always said that:

“I can’t let you care for
anything in my house

that has more value
than my daughters”;

so, for me, Mari is a relative,

I wouldn ́t be able to
establish the kind of kinship,

but she belongs to us.

Yes, it ́s true.

There are a lot of things
in my vocabulary that,

as she was with us throughout
our whole childhood,

which came from her.
Sentences like...

I remember that up to November
she wore a skirt and said:

“The thing is I want
it to keep being hot.

That’s why I wear a skirt,

because I still want
the weather to remain hot.

Summer cannot end”.

And, sometimes, I repeat to myself

things like this aloud:
“I want...”, this comes from Mari.

She wore a skirt from April.

She was wearing it already...

A lot, above all,

I remember all
the optimistic things,

with good vibes.

It’s true, I didn’t remember that.
How good!

That she attracted heat like that...

It’s the instinct of
self-improvement.

Personally, I don’t know,
what we have discussed.

A person with what could
be cultural limitations,

who wasn’t limited by
anything, anything at all.

She did everything
she wanted and could do.

How many times we restrict
ourselves having other tools

that we were lucky to have!

And you say: “But, well,
would it be possible?”

It is about wanting to do
things, taking courage

and she took courage
for everything.

And not only did she take courage;

she took courage
and put effort into it.

Without needing anybody’s help.

That is the most important thing
she taught me, doubtlessly.

They made me learn a lot at once;
because I was very ingenuous.

My mother always said to me:
“I would have liked to be a boy”.

And I said:
“Why, if being a woman...?”

“No babe, because if
you do something,

you get rid of it at
the doorstep and that’s it.

The woman comes with the prize”.

Things of her time.

Now this is heard
and it’s: “Oh!” ...

I am the kind of person
who tells her own grandson:

“As soon as you have a girlfriend,
a condom in your pocket.”

When you said something like this,

inappropriate, she said:
“Oh, shut up, you joker!”

The “shut up, you joker”
thing is true,

but I don’t think that it was
not only something inappropriate,

but she was also a bit
embarrassed by matters

that had to do with deeper feelings.

She was not the kind of
person who interfered

into these kinds of topics.

She maybe had her armoured side.

She was embarrassed at her privacy,
but not for everything else.

My mom would be one or
two years old in these photos.

They are the first granddad took.

At number 50 Padre Oltra Street.

In this courtyard which remains
exactly as it was back then.

My mother and Lorenzo,
her younger brother.

When they were little, in summer,
they both went to Lozoyuela,

my grandmother’s village.

They brought me here
at five years old

because my father died
when I was five,

and here I remained
until I was seven.

Your mother came in the summers

and spent a month or two here,
because she was already at school.

The school of orphans...

The school of orphans of the police.

And she came with us,

because I couldn’t go to
the school until I was seven.

Here, we could go
to the country and play.

What did you play?

Football in the village,
or catching bugs, lizards.

With those catapults that were
made with rubber you shot birds,

whatever we could.

The house, apart
from being very small,

if you notice, that wall
that has mud and stone,

that was the wall dividing
the house from the hay loft,

where she had her animals,

and, from that wall,
there was a small room

that reached the jamb of
that window, more or less.

And the house had two floors;
there was a bedroom

and stairs that went up,
sort of past the window.

The house was like this.

But, look at what remains:
a plot of land totally destroyed,

it hasn’t been preserved
due to slackness.

My summers as a kid were
Gandía beach and the sea.

When my father was
a kid he lost Luis,

which was the name
of his older brother.

He told me Luis became very sick.

His father hit him, called him lazy,
made him go to work.

When the doctor came at last,
it was already too late.

My father kept a photo
of his brother all his life.

He lost it

soon before he died.

Childhood is a place
from which we come

and to which we always go back,

and memory always takes
care of fitting it

to our dreams and wishes.

You had to touch that wall

at the end of the
promenade every night

in order to be able to
come back the next summer.

It was very typical of mom
make games to control fate.

Yes, as the thing about
the red underwear,

the ring in the champagne glass
on New Year’s Eve

and the coin in the fountain.

Or blowing all the candles
on a birthday.

Yes. And that about a ringing
in your ear, do you remember it?

No, I don’t.

Yes, look,

mom told me that when

you had a ringing in your ear,
those that lasted some seconds,

is that someone was
thinking of you in a good way,

and you had to look around

you and look for something,

an object that drew
your attention the most

and the initial of that object

was the initial of the name of the
person that was thinking of you.

Cristina...

I recall many moments with her
when I come to Barcelona.

I fell in love with
Cristina on a trip,

on Saint James’ way, in Muxía,
very close to Finisterre,

but things change.

We couldn ́t continue
being together...

At one stage we talked
about starting a family.

I really miss

her liveliness, her energy,
her joy for travelling.

She loved travelling, living,
wishing to do everything,

I miss her optimism,
her way of seeing life, simple.

I think that the first trip we both
made on our own was to Seville.

It was a gift from her.

- For your birthday...
- For a birthday...

I don’t know if it was at
sixteen or at fifteen, maybe

because of "My love is
fifteen years old" thing,

that she liked so much...

Wait, one thing.

Sing to me "My love is fifteen
years old", the three of you!

Of course, if you want to,
we can also dance.

No, that is not necessary.

We only know the first verses...

"My love is fifteen years old... "

That's it.

I will keep that.

Fifteen, fifteen years old
is my love,

she likes dancing to rock so much.

She is such a divine
and extraordinary kid;

she has a way of looking
that nobody can resist.

That girl is unique

and when
she dances, amazing.

If I give her my hand,
she will caress it;

if I kiss her,
I will know what dreaming is...

Your mother, well, we started
sending letters to each other,

explaining our daily matters.

Then, she came to see us
before my son was born.

We were in Madrid
when we got married in 1968

and she took us to the Retiro park,
to see the sights.

I liked it when
I sent photos to her,

as I see I sent her
more than I kept,

but, well, I am happy to see
that she kept them.

There is a trip here;

she appears in the Tibidabo.
It must be Tibidabo.

Yes, with my brother.

Your brother is
in the three photos...

Yes.

And the photos on the beach.

These photos,
why does she appear asleep?

Because it made him laugh.

- Who?
- Him.

I have one that is the same.

Why?

I caught them sleeping and,
come on, let’s take a photo

- Yes.
- And I sent them...

This had to be the school,

the surroundings of
the school, right?

- So it seems.
- Yes.

I found this identity card.
Would that school still exist?

When did you join
the school of Orphans?

In 1957.

First, you know, my brother joined.

When I was there,
I saw him every Sunday.

My life was there,
I met your mother,

I met more people with
whom I lost touch later.

Did you miss Barcelona?
Your mother?

You are always homesick at first.
Then, you get used to it.

I was alone with my mother,
I slept with my mother;

everything was with my mother.

And then, you miss it, but,
as I had my brother there,

it was an incentive for me...
He enjoyed eating a lot;

he loved eating.

My mother sent him parcels.
He got a nickname,

now with Marisa Revuelta,
Durillo invented it-,

they called him "Carpanta",

due to enjoying eating so much.

It was something, he always was

and it’s still now,
even in the state he is in,

and I give him everything grinded

and I tell him: “It is good?”
and he says...

that yes, that it is very good.
“You have always been a big eater”.

At nights, which was the moment
you could see my mother,

where were you exactly?

I remember there was a gallery
with some colourful mosaics

and there were beds like this

and, they place you in the gallery,
or they did in a room.

I was placed in a room.

Because of that,
I got out of many situations.

Your mother was in the corridor;

I used to go out through the window
and she was there...

we talked.

We had to pay attention
to the rosary,

and then, she covered,
and I went to sleep.

The rosary?

Yes, the nun. She wore
the rosary hanging from here,

klin, klin,
and you had to cover yourself...

Then, I loved it,
but now I remember it,

if they did it to a son
or a grandson of mine,

I would have devoured the teacher.

We all walked in a row,

they placed you as soldiers

and we had to march to the canteen,
march to go to mass...

And then, of course,
you had to do everything:

altar boy, helping in mass.

And also, fun, of course.

There were leisure times.

We played football,
the swimming pool.

It wasn’t a bad time;

let’s say it like that.

The punishment I underwent,
and which makes you suffer

is that they seemed soldiers.

I didn’t see anyone hitting anybody.
I wasn’t hit; I cannot say,

but when, for example,
your mother and I,

and talked like this.

“Who spoke?”
Everyone went silent;

we protected each other.

Then, you had to go
to the gallery, downstairs.

You put your hand on the shoulder
of the one in front of you;

the one behind you, on your
shoulder, put your arms down.

You could spend two hours like that,

standing straight.

Imagine!

But I heard: “when they
hit you on this cheek,

you must turn the other”,
I said no.

They will hit me on this,

but the next time, if I can,
I will be the one who hits.

I’m sorry.

That’s what the nuns said.

That God said that
when they slapped you,

you had to turn the other cheek.

No, that’s not going to happen.

They could put a seven,
eight, or nine years old boy

against the wall, an inch,

a handspan far from it,
under the sun.

I saw more than one fainting
and falling to the ground.

Anyway, they were
a bit tough punishment.

Hitting you with the whistle on
your head causing an open wound,

slapping, they slapped
you due to anything.

I don’t know, if that’s education,
it would have to be like this.

I peed on the bed, and then,

the task was mine for them
not to see the wet sheets,

to conceal what I wetted,

because the nuns were
walking by and looking.

The first thing they said:

“Anyone who pees in bed,
goes with the sheets

to the boys’ dining room”.

And they took you to
walk in front of them.

I saw girls walking,
because, of course,

this was the window of
the boys’ dining room

and this was ours and you saw

how the girl walked
around the dining room

with her sheet or her
knickers on her head.

I didn’t give a damn about the boys,

because that is my nature,

but my brother; that was my fear.
If he had seen me,

the embarrassment he would have felt
would have been terrible.

Then, I tried...

It wasn’t the school’s fault,

the ones to blame were those who
took care of teaching or education.

Francisco, my father’s father,
usually got drunk.

He hit his children,

he hit my father.

That’s how he was educated,

with fear.

He did the same.

He never hit me, but he
told me over and over again

that the world was dangerous;

he confined me in the house.

He educated me with fear:

the one he had been taught.

Your mother and I,
when we were young,

we had been together until
they separated you there:

girls to one side
and boys to the other.

Your mother bought me sweets

and tried to give them
to me as she could.

There were meals she didn’t like,

and we passed them
on through the service staff

on the tables and you said to them:

“Can you give this to my brother?”
or the other way around.

And things like this.

It was the only joining
together we could have.

Then, at the weekends, yes,

you saw each other,
went home with your mother,

but during the week we practically
didn’t see each other.

There were problems in her
last years with one of her brothers,

Lorenzo,

and now, speaking
about your brother...

their relationship was very tight.

I imagine that,

if that had happened to you with
your brother, it would have been...

Horrific.

And if your mother had
gone through it,

she must have had a difficult time,

because I didn’t have any
problem with my brother.

When my mother died,
I told him: “Bro,

I’ll show you mom’s jewels,

because you have bought
her many of them,

and you have a daughter.
Come in and...”,

he said: “Everything that’s
behind that door is yours”.

And he didn’t want anything.

Where do you go to see your brother?

Here to a nursery home that

there is in Valle Hebrón,
Sant Jordi’s Hospital.

Because he suffers from...

He suffers from Alzheimer.

It started with things his wife saw

and has been falling ever since.
Now he is disabled.

He only moves his hand

and his head a little bit
and that’s it.

And about my mother
he started asking:

“How is mom feeling?”
I have never told him...

I have never told him she was dead,

and he told me:
“Why doesn’t she come?”

“Because she can’t come,
she’s very old”.

Until the day in which

my mother would have been
99 years old, I dared to say:

“Mother turns 99 years old today”.
He said: “Oh, really?”

And then, he stopped
speaking about her;

I didn’t speak to him
about her either.

And yesterday I went to see him.

And I say to him: “Bro,
I’m leaving, I have to eat”.

And he said to me:
“Take care of mom”.

And I answered to him:
“Yes, I have to feed her,

that’s why Rafa doesn’t come,
because he’s taking care of her”.

We used to have a lunch
in a market down there,

in the Guineueta neighbourhood,

and he used to come,
and we had lunch together;

even the last birthday
in which he turned 69:

the day before, I brought a cake

and my son, my daughter came,
everyone came,

and we could take the
last photograph with him.

And now, nothing.

I imagine that all
this must be tough.

Very tough, very tough.
To see him there...

To see him there
it’s very tough.

It is a photograph we took with
a group of acquaintances,

brothers and sisters,
on a Sunday, I think.

I kept that photo as a memory;

it is one of the few
we had together.

What does this photo tell you?

Well the childhood years,

the years we were
together at school,

that you sometimes miss.

Do they make you feel
moved somehow?

A bit.

How much?

Take into consideration you are
with your mother,

with your family, your father dies,
and they separate you.

They separate you from your mother,
from your sister.

And that...

marks you.

In my case, my mother’s death
left me that

feeling I would have liked
to say things to her.

I often think that
“if she was alive, fuck,

I could tell her this or that”,
as the son I have been.

It was a sudden death, you know.

You, as her brother,

would you have liked
to say something to her...

We didn’t have a tight relation
in the last few years,

we have been a bit distanced;

maybe we would have had to say sorry
to each other for certain things

and have communicated more.

That truly could have lacked:

a bit of communication.

And clarifying some matters,
but, anyway,

nothing can be done now.

That’s for sure.

The more you look at
those photos that hurt you...

This is the same I tell my daughter,
when she goes to see my brother.

She came in, started crying
and she had to leave the room.

And the last time
she didn’t cry anymore.

In the end, you see him,
you remember him,

and you remember him
in a different way.

You see him in a different way.
It hurts less.

It hurts you,

because you were now talking
to me of him and your mom,

but then, if you talk and see,
it is less painful.

My parents emigrated
to Italy and Switzerland.

In October 2015 I travelled

to the places they were:
Verona, Cortina, Brissago, Arosa.

And in Arosa I met a couple,
Francesco and Francesca,

who worked in the same hotel where
my parents worked fifty years ago.

I would have liked to ask my parents
about their experience in Arosa.

I can ́t do it anymore;

I will ask those questions
to Francesco and Francesca.

And how did you meet, a party?

We had common friends

and I arranged to meet them
to go to a party in their village.

And we met there.
And then, more things happened...

We had already met a year before.

It’s true.

There was already a certain...

- More from their side.
- ... attraction.

It has been an experience that
we decided to accept,

for the sake of
the experience itself,

because it was the way
of getting a bit out,

of our house, of Italy,
to see how things were.

And, then, we decided:
“Ok, let’s go!”

Above all, for us,
Italians, and even more,

or southern Italians,
who are deep-rooted;

we have a strong bond with our land.

It is clear that, at the beginning,
this has to be taken into account,

but, then thanks to our optimism,

we could forget it
and moved forward.

Nostalgia is the key of
our experience with our family.

Familiar places.

We are very attached
to the places of our land.

I have had the occasion of feeling

those places,
when we have been far away.

Your family wants you go back...

Ah, yes!

Of course!

They wish it more
than anything else.

They wish it, undoubtedly.

I think it is essential

or getting to know oneself
and appreciating

what you have;

one is obliged to leave
and have new experiences,

because, otherwise,
one will never fully understand,

and above all, would remain

a bit empty.

I didn’t know that love,
that mutual understanding.

I didn’t know those parents.

Our parents will always
be a mystery.

Do you know, Raúl, why am
I making this documentary?

You’ve told me something,
but... I don’t know.

When mom died, I remember
that Marcos told us something like

we would have to get it out of
our chest at some moment,

that something would come out;

it would be interesting or not,

but it might help us somehow,
at least, me.

And you, why did you want
to make this documentary?

I know the reason
why I didn’t want to.

I didn’t have any need
of paying a tribute

to my father or my mother.

I gave them the love I could
when I was with them.

I think that when they died
they knew that I loved them

and that they loved me.
I didn’t have that urge;

I don’t have the need
of mourning either.

I mourn differently,
not making movies.

But, why are you working
on this documentary?

It’s not a very deep reason,

but it is the only one I have:
I have a good time doing this.

My father told me one night,
in which both of us were sleepless,

that some days
before getting married,

a woman called phone him.

It was a female colleague
with whom he got along very well.

She wanted him to go to her house
that same afternoon.

I don’t know if she was asking him
to go to Galicia with her

or he thought she was
going to ask him so.

By then everything was ready:

the wedding with my mother,
the trip to Switzerland.

His mother convinced him
not to go to that date.

Two years before dying
I asked him about that story;

he answered

that I imagined it.

Did he make up that story?

Did it really happen?

Do you know why I chose Arosa?

When I met Francesco and Francesca

I had a feeling our parents
felt at home there, they were happy.

They started something,
which then collapsed.

I have seen here a feeling
of happiness or joy

that appears in our parents’ photos.

I don’t know if you agree.

The photos you have chosen,

which appear in the movie
represent that spirit,

the spirit of some newlyweds,

they are happy, they are together,

and, even though they were working,

and work wouldn’t be a
very enjoyable activity,

I do think that they were happy

in that place and the
two of them together.

When do you think

the relationship between our
parents started to deteriorate?

Have you ever thought about it?
I have thought about it many times.

When did it start?

I suppose it was little by little.

It was little by little.

I don’t know.

Until they didn’t have anything
in common, I suppose.

And above all, our mother thought
she didn’t have anything in common

with the person
she got married with.

People change as well;

sometimes, they change for good
and other times, in a bad way.

Or, simply, they
take different roads.

And I think that our parents,

being married for years
and getting older,

they became very different people,

they didn’t have anything
in common anymore.

When they divorced, dad or mom,
I don’t know who,

said that dad didn’t
want to have us

and wanted to stay in Italy.

Leaving here was for him
the beginning of his process...

he didn’t know how to adapt
to the coming back, to the return.

Surely, mom didn’t want to stay
in Switzerland or Italy,

but, because our mother loved
her family a lot,

she wanted to stay with
her mother in Madrid,

she wanted to buy a house,

but him, I don’t know.
We never spoke about it.

It’s a good story.

Have we spoken with
our parents enough?

I think, for example,

I didn’t speak enough
with father...

Dad had a curious personality.

There was something inside him
that he didn’t show to anybody;

however, everyone who knew him

said: “How joyous and funny he is!
He spoke to everybody!”

And he was truly like that,

he spoke with everybody
he met in the street.

When I was with him there were
people that greeted him,

but I think that they were
shallow relations;

they weren’t profound.

Doesn’t that happen to us too?

We keep many things, that there are
things we are not able to take out?

Don’t you think?

I don’t know.

That we conceal things,
that we keep them for ourselves;

that we don’t know
how to explain ourselves,

to express what we feel,

to be sincere enough
to say one thing,

without the need of thinking
it over and over,

because we don’t dare
to say it, we are afraid...

What things?

In every detail.

For example, instead of saying
one thing straight away

we try to avoid it
by getting around it.

That is when it is something bad.

And when it is something good,
don’t we do it?

When it’s good, I always do it.

And why, when it’s bad...?

Because you are afraid
of hurting people.

- Does it happen to you as well?
- Yes,

I would like to say something
that bothers me,

or it is not well done
and it’s hard to do it.

But, doesn’t that hurt us?

Most probably, because
you sometimes keep

things for so many years,

so long, months, years, which,
in the end, it’s worse, indeed.

I discovered then a
father I didn’t know;

my mother loved him,

and he loved us.

Since my childhood was gone,
I moved away from him.

In one occasion, as a teenager,

during an argument,

he took an axe and
threatened me with it.

I sheltered in my room;

my mother tried to protect me.

In the last moment
he avoided hurting me

and landed a blow on
the night table instead.

I remember the notch;

it remained there years
and years as a warning

until my mother threw
the piece of furniture away.

The other wound between
the two of us, the one inside,

it never closed completely.

Four days before he died

I visited him at the hospital.

He had a tube into his throat.

He couldn’t speak,

but he understood me perfectly.

When we said goodbye,
I kissed his forehead.

I didn’t use to kiss him.

It surprised him.

I sensed a smile in his look.

It was the last time I saw him,

alive.

It’s nice you have
brought me here. I mean...

I have liked to be here.

I have always seen the
photos when I was a kid

and getting to know this place

is something that moves me.

- Yeah?
- Yes, it really moves me.

I see those places where they were

and I really like seeing them.

It is a way for them to be,
it is a way of being with them.

It is more than that,

it is that they were here.

For example, this morning...

I was very amused seeing
“this is the dance hall”,

it was written behind a photo.

Our mother used to
write behind the photos.

Yes, I’ve seen you.

And I was very amused seeing that,

because you think

that one day she would come here
to dance, for example.

Or, as we are in the hotel,
they worked here

or walked on these
streets or went shopping,

and, as it was a place
we had never been to,

it’s like completing something
that didn’t exist

which was lost.
We had it from their memories,

but we didn’t have it.

Those photos were too,
but it was a place

that wasn’t our memory and
now it is in ours and in theirs.

They spoke about this
place, about Italy,

about these places and one thought:

“Well, we’ll never go”.

I would have liked
to come with them,

it would have been fun
to come here with them

and that they came
with us to the hotel.

It would have been beautiful.

But it couldn’t be and that’s it.
At least, we have come.

Many years after,

I walk on these places

where Regina,

my grandparents,

my father,

my mother were.

And I have the strange feeling
that they are still here,

that I could find them any moment.

Dad and mom worried about you,

in their last years,
when I was settled,

and I also have that concern.
I must admit it to you.

I have thought:
“If I died, what would happen...?”

It is nonsense, I know,

but if I died,
what would happen to my brother?

If you remained alone,
whether you would get by, because

I see you very vulnerable...

I know, I feel the same,

that I wouldn ́t like to die
and leave you alone.

I feel that as well,
but I don’t think

that you are more fragile
than me or that

I am more fragile than you.
No.

I think that you would
remain alone;

you wouldn’t have
a brother anymore.

Two have already gone;
then, you are the only one left.

And, when only one remains,

losing you, that’s not having
a family anymore for me.

That is a family:
dad, mum, my brother.

That’s it.

In 2014, in summer,

six months before her death,

we were in Segovia.

It was the last trip
we made together

before the one to Buenos Aires.

We went down to see
the church of Santa Cruz.

And she recorded me.

What’s wrong?

Nothing, that I have
taken a photo of you and...

Sometimes I have a dream.

María, look at the camera, smile!

María, very good!

But it is just a dream.

What has been lost

To our grandparents
and our parents...