BarcelonaÁngela Cervantes (Barcelona, 1993) has just presented the drama Valenciana by Jordi Núñez at the Atlántida Mallorca Film Fest, which explores the social evolution of the Community of Valencia over the last three decades. Just at the end of the filming of this movie, based on the work of Jordi Casanovas, Cervantes read the novel by Delphine de Vigan Nada se opone por la noche (Edicions 62 / Anagrama), which seeks to reconstruct the unfortunate life of the writer’s mother, Lucille, who suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2009. And although it has been a while since she read it, Cervantes still has the book very much in mind. “The author seeks answers in some tapes to heal the relationship she had with her mother – explains the actress –. In the end, the book talks about how to deal with the family you have and with traumas that come from afar. And all of this is a very liberating process that I also try to apply to my life.”
This exercise of seeking answers in the past relates to the way Cervantes approaches characters, but also to her education. “Although I already knew I wanted to be an actress, I also wanted to have a career and studied criminology – she says –. At its core, criminology addresses everything that law does not cover. The law explains what has happened, who did it, and where, but it neglects the social part: the why it happened and what we can do to avoid it.” The actress sees a parallel between the way criminology works and the search for meaning of the protagonist in Nada se opone por la noche. “The novel seeks to understand why people do what they do in order to forgive,” she says. “De Vigan reminds us that without understanding there is no forgiveness. And until you forgive, you are not at peace with yourself.”
