The Barga connection and the award winning film “Arrugas” – “Wrinkles”

Somebody with an extremely close connection with Barga has been making their name on the international cinema scene. We are talking about Rosanna Cecchini, one of the screen writers on the Spanish animation film Arrugas – Wrinkles, which has been winning all kinds of prizes recently. We contacted Rosanna in her home in Scotland and asked her just what was her connection with Barga. This is her reply:

My relationship with Barga is one which goes back a long way! In many ways I have grown up in Barga. All my summer holidays throughout my childhood and adolescence were spent there and I have friends there who I have known my whole life. Although I still consider myself to be very Scottish, all my ancestors on both my father and mother’s side are from Barga and the surrounding area.

My father Francesco Cecchini is from Sommocolonia and my mother’s family came from Bebbio/Renaio. My parents have now retired and live in Barga permanently. Also my sister Cristina lived in Barga (the Moma) for many years before moving to Viareggio with her husband, Barga’s very own Carlo Da Prato and their young family where they still live today.

Even one of my dogs is from Barga! She was gifted to me by my friend Federica Piacentini when I was living in Barga for a year in 2001.

In 2006 I met my husband Ignacio Ferreras when we both worked on the production of Sylvain Chomet’s animated feature “The Illusionist” which was made in Edinburgh. We were married in 2009 by Don Stefano in the church of San Frediano in Sommocolonia. We had a simple ceremony with close family and a few friends and our honeymoon was spent in Sommocolonia. It was very special.
We returned immediately to Edinburgh to start work on “Arrugas” (English title: Wrinkles) which Ignacio was directing.

We are thrilled that “Arrugas” has won both the Goya for Best Animated Feature and Best Adapted Screenplay. Unfortunately Ignacio and I could not make it to the ceremony in Madrid so we had to watch it online, but we are now waiting to receive our Goyas in the post!

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Arruga – Wrinkles,an astonishing cocktail of friendship, resistance and life set among the unexpected landscape of an elderly care facility. Based on Paco Roca’s comic of the same title (2008 National Comic Prize), WRINKLES is a 2D animated feature-length film for an adult audience.

Wrinkles portrays the friendship between Emilio and Miguel, two aged gentlemen shut away in a care home. Recent arrival Emilio, in the early stages of Alzheimer, is helped by Miguel and colleagues to avoid ending up on the feared top floor of the care home, also known as the lost causes or “assisted” floor. Their wild plan infuses their otherwise tedious day-to-day with humour and tenderness, because although for some their lives is coming to an end, for them it is just beginning.

In 2008 the Department for Culture prized it with the National Comic Award and Italy’s prestigious Lucca Festival bestowed it the Gran Guinigi Award for best long story. Wrinkles has also won the top prizes for Best Material and Best Script by the Salón Internacional del Cómic in Barcelona 2008 and the Award for Best Spanish Comic Strip by the Diario de Avisos of Tenerife 2008. Winning over the critics and readership alike, with more than 30.000 copies sold since Astiberri published it in Spain, where it is considered to be one of the most important comics of the decade . France’s Comic Critics Association short-listed Wrinkles in the top twenty comic albums of 2007. It has also been published in Italy, Holland, Finland and soon to be in Germany and Japan.

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“I haven ́t really made anything up. The real anecdotes are so good they couldn ́t be outdone. Emilio [the lead role] is the father of a good friend of mine [...] I also met a lady who spent all day sat at a window convinced she was on a train and to get her to eat something she had to be told she was in the dining coach.” Paco Roca

Working with a 2 million euro budget, the film’s animation was mainly produced in Spain by the 12 Pingüinos studio and in the Philippines by Wayne Dearing and his team at Top Draw Animation. The project’s few CG elements were handled by Barcelona-based Digital 360. All told, about 200 people worked on the film from start to finish.

The director, Ignacio Ferreras and producer, Manuel Cristóbal wanted to make a small film so that they could have the creative freedom to stay true to the original text. Ferreras had one non-negotiable condition:

“I had to do the entire storyboard and animatic myself and that I would have the freedom to change the script as much as I needed during that process, so that the film could grow organically from the storyboarding process, That of course created a series of logistical challenges: we had to fit a one-year-long storyboarding process into a two-year-long production. Efficient communication was also crucial because I was working mainly from my home in Scotland, together with my wife and co-scriptwriter Rosanna Cecchini, while the rest of the production team and the other two co-scriptwriters were spread between five different Spanish cities, the Philippines and Berlin.” – source

Cast: Alvaro Guevara, Tacho Gonzalez, Mabel Rivera
Director/editor: Ignacio Ferreras
Screenwriters: Ángel de la Cruz, Paco Roca, Ignacio Ferreras, Rosanna Cecchini
Based on the book by: Paco Roca
Producers: Manuel Cristóbal, Oriol Ivern
Executive producers: María Arochena, Ángel de la Cruz, Toni Marín, Tono Folguera, Daniel Martínez
Director of photography: David Cubero
Music: Nani Garcia

website is here

Retired bank Manager Emilio suffers from Alzheimer and is taken to the elderly care home by his son. Confused by his new surroundings and disorientated, he regresses to earlier stages of his life. Emilio unexpectedly finds support in his room-mate Miguel, and together they will employ all kinds of stunts to stop the doctors noticing Emilio´s ongoing deterioration. Through their struggle to stay active as individuals and maintain their dignity, the pair shape a genuine, strong friendship.

Miguel – one of the care home veterans, this mischievous and brazen trickster guides Emilio through the different environments within his new home. Having always lived without emotional ties, Miguel finds himself directly witnessing his new friend ́s gradual degeneration. Involved in all sorts of comical and absurd situations to help Emilio, Miguel will be now be confronted by his own fears and the decisions that have marked his life up until now.

Poignant animated feature about senior citizens is one the year’s best Spanish films.

An exceptional animated feature from Spain, Wrinkles imaginatively and sensitively explore one of the major issues confronting most of the developed world: how to look after senior citizens in a rapidly aging population. Following the ups and downs experienced by a retired bank-manager after he moves into a retirement home, this adaptation of Paco Roca’s award-winning graphic novel represents a far from easy commercial sell. But Sylvain Chomet’s Oscar-nominated The Illusionist, on which Wrinkles director Ignacio Ferreras worked as a character animator, shows that with suitable marketing and critical support audiences do exist for such outstanding, adult-oriented fare.  – Hollywoodreporter