The Mallorcan women of La bola negra: a conversation with Belén Martí, movement director and choreographer

You have already seen Belén Martí’s hand, even if you didn’t know it. It is the one on the poster for La Mesías: that gesture of fingers held together, taken from Romanesque and Renaissance Madonnas, which the Stella Maris repeated on stage as if singing were a way of praying. That choreography was made by a Mallorcan.

Now Belén Martí has worked again with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, this time as movement director and choreographer of La bola negra. The film follows three men across three eras, 1932, 1937 and 2017, and in each one the body knows different things: what can be shown, what has to be hidden, how you touch someone when you can’t touch them in front of anyone. That work, which isn’t in the dialogue, is hers. Trained in contemporary dance and in the folklore she reinvents with Mucha Muchacha, Belén does work that almost never shows up in the credits people read, but that you can feel in every shot.

A few weeks ago, Virginia Galán told us how a film like this reaches its audience. Now we want to go to the other side, inside the shoot, and understand how you direct a body in front of the camera. On Saturday 24 October at 10.15am, after the screening of La bola negra, we’ll be talking with her at CineCiutat.

Lorca left four pages. Belén Martí found the way they had to move. Come and meet the hand behind it.

Tickets here.