Xavi Herrero exports the most oneiric Ibiza with its full-length film “R. E. M, rapid eyes movement”
We make use of this vacation month to recommend one of these tapes that makes you reflect about. Xavi Herrero proposes to us a travel towards the interior of the human mind, to this deep part of the mind that it is the sleep.
The sleep is one of a lot of mental activities that the human being does not achieve to understand. It is defined as a sensomotor imagination that is experienced as if it was an awake reality although the concepts of time, place, persons, actions or emotions are not real. The curious thing is that in the sleep they turn out to be material cognitive enigmatic and of highly emotional and subjective content, that’s why they are so difficult to interpret.
The sleep is a function of our body to repair the organism to be able to continue the life in ideal conditions. The cycle of the sleep has two main phases: the sleep No-REM, which has several stages in itself, the first one is the drowsiness, a transition between the wakefulness and the sleep. Later there would come the light sleep, in which the pulsations go down and if they are extremely low we suffer a “spasm” that is a notice that throws our brain to our body. After the transition stage to deep sleep and the entry to the fourth stage, finally we come to the phase R. E. M. In this phase in which the brain is very active, we dream and receive large number of information and it is in this phase where Xavi Herrero has found the inspiration.
The film
This full-length film is a fiction drama inspired by two of its previous shorts “Vestido Rojo para Luna” and “Onírics“, in which he reflects already on the oneiric world and our interaction with it. As Herrero himself declared to SER Radio Ibiza, “Vestido rojo para luna inspired me more at script level, but Onírics is the R. E. M aesthetic base”. Both shorts have been played in the island, and this same way “R. E. M“ was presented last March.
“R. E. M, rapid eyes movement” raises the influence and the importance of the sleep, it talks about of how a little that affects us, makes us dream of it and dreaming about something affects us. «The movie titles “R. E. M” as the phase of the sleep has the same name because the script explores an oneiric universe and walks along the conscious one, the unconscious one and the subconscious» the director reports. Herrero wanted to go deep into “culturally appellants” dreams to explain the history of this girl obsessed with the hypothetical disappearance of her father.
Filmed between Barcelona, Morocco and mainly Ibiza the tape shows us different scenarios for every type of sleep. This film has a simple structure, two characters interact in a room and the spectator only leaves this room across the dreams and the memories, “that is where Ibiza shines for, is the perfect stage to create this oneiric universe”, Herrero points.
Ainhoa Herrero is the protagonist; an ibizan actress almost amateur, Espe Méndez and Ángel Roldán, a professional actor from Barcelona, they all form the cast.
R. E. M is a tape that is provided with very low budget, but this wasn’t a problem at the time of launching it to international festivals of the cinematographic world, since the director wants that it is on-line available through a payment form in his web page. Balears Film Commission is managing an economic support with him to support its distribution.
Herrero, the artist
Herrero counts with a long career as professional camera operator freelance for TV3, where it entered payroll a few years ago. Also, he has been employed at documentaries and producers’ programs like The Terrat. Although his formation began concerning the photography he finally opted for the movies and television.
On the other hand, Herrero is taking part with the director Enrique Villalonga for a new chapter of Villalonga’s series “Aiguallums” where the ibizan artists express its artistic look.
In addition, Xavi Herrero is the director of the Ibiza Movies Fest, a festival that is celebrated at the beginning of year in Ibiza. This year, 42 national and international shorts have been projected in the auditorium of Can Ventosa and Districte Hipérbole. The term to inscribe short starts in June, the web is www.ibizacinefest.com
