Céline Roustan

Soledad is one of those people you see treasure hunting on the beach armed with a metal detector, only her latest find isn’t the riches she was expecting to find, but a whale heart…and it’s alive! In her directorial debut Heartsong, writer/director Aurora Real de Asua builds a multifaceted and emotionally poignant metaphor from this surreal premise. 

“I’ve always been intrigued by people who comb beaches looking for treasures”

To say that the narrative of this film is way-out is quite an understatement, so we were naturally very curious to know more about how the idea came to be. As is often the case, especially for such a layered narrative, Real de Asua blended a bunch of ideas to create the premise for Heartsong. Revealing that she’d “always been intrigued by people who comb beaches looking for treasures”, the filmmaker started to reflect on what if the treasure was more than “just gold”. The character of the lonely woman came to her around the same time as she witnessed a beached whale and so she combined all of this with her passion for the ocean, added a dash of magic and Soledad’s story came to be.

There is a healing quality to the film that manifests itself in two different ways. By finding this heart, and nursing it back to health, this woman finds a purpose and this mission brings her joy. The symbol of the heart also adds another layer to the metaphor and to Soledad’s emotional journey through the film. And by being a whale heart in distress, the environmental side of the story is impossible to miss, from having to care for it all the way to having to set it free, despite how painful it is. Through it all, Real de Asua’s direction never feels too preachy or on the nose and she finds the perfect emotional beats to give the story a light yet meaningful impact.

Charín Álvarez as Soledad, a woman who forms a strong bond with a whale’s heart.

The beauty of this surreal story is in how engaging it is, but for this to happen the heart itself had to look convincing, so it doesn’t distract us from the emotional core of the film, cheapen its depth and turn it into a grotesque farce. A challenge that the filmmakers took on without any digitization. “Handcrafted out of foam, glue, and latex”, the heart puppet had to look good, but also a little gross too…it is a disembodied heart after all. Just like the top billing talent of any film, Real de Asua shared with us that the heart had “multiple handlers on set”. All of its movements, which turn the puppet into an actual character with an emotional journey of its own, were created by a puppeteer. The heart felt so alive, that it even had a moving chemistry with its on screen partner, Charín Álvarez who portrays Soledad.

And props should also be given to her, as her presence is the most tangible part of this film, her performance paramount in grounding the story. With her reactions remain nuanced with emotion, without ever overdoing it, she manages to instigate a suspension of disbelief in the viewer that allows us to truly appreciate the relationship, as beautiful and potent as any friendship, she builds with the heart.

We are excited to be hosting the World Premiere of Heartsong, which was produced during Real de Asua’s MFA film program at Columbia. She is currently in the pre-production stage of her follow-up short film titled Patatas Bravas, which will follow the hijinks of three abuelitas in Spain.