“Now I know my father better than Ovid.”

This Sunday will have been twenty-nine years ago Ovid Muntler It will be going on vacation and the group Ovid 4 He will be remembered with a concert in Calderon Theater in Alcoy. together with Mireya Vives, Borja Penalba, David Fernandez I David Canothey will perform there too Miguel Gil I Filho Ventura. The ceremony, in addition to the tribute, comes within the framework of solidarity support for the production of the documentary film Where were you when you were there?the first opera Jana Montlerthe youngest daughter of Ovid.

In this interview, Jana Montler can't say much about the outcome of the photo shoot, which is nothing more than a trip down memory lane. The intention was to separate Ovid's public memory, which is well documented, from personal and private memory. This was the aim of the research.

The film was produced in collaboration the forest. The majority of women participated in all phases, and the partial care phase remains open.

We meet Jana Montler at the northern station of Valencia, among the scaffolding and the constant stream of people who are beginning to experience errors. She came from Barcelona and had to continue the journey to Chativa and Alcoy.

—What stage of the process is the film in?
-We have finished most of the filming, and now, soon, we will start editing.

—You financed the most important part of the production through institutional channels, but you wanted part of it to be collective work.
-Yes. There are many factors. We are a small film cooperative, and cooperatives have systems for communication and collaboration. On the other hand, we liked the idea of ​​doing a campaign that went a little further and wasn't just crowdfunding, but a collective memory.

—By what logic?
—The idea was for them to send messages across networks using the hashtag #Ovidimemória, but it is difficult for people to send memories through tags. A few people have contacted us via email to share memories.

—I reviewed the documentary on memory exercises. Has photography taken you to unexpected places?
-One thing I've noticed is that by asking about my father, you end up meeting the person you asked. There is one issue that I found very beautiful, which is the generational portrait of an era. I've found little things, but sometimes I feel like it's hard to ask for them as a daughter. This is the stuff the movie is made of, but I can't explain too much now so as not to crush the guitar.

—When you think of your father, what do you think of? As a parent? Like Ovidi Monteller?
– It has been a long time since I started talking about Ovid, because I think I somehow got involved in his general dimension, and stopped talking about the father. The only person I always talk to about the Pope is my mother, because it has always been like this and nothing has changed, but many people have said to me “But you, why are you talking about Ovid and not my father?” I didn't quite understand the question. And as I started making the documentary, I realized that, in a way, because I felt like I had few memories, I was very attached to the idea of ​​Ovid, about whom I had more information than to the idea of ​​my father, because when he died I was young and I didn't have enough memories.

—In the already watchable preview of the film, you talk about a photo you took of your father on a trip to Mallorca and lost. Do we build memory from pictures or from words?
– I like the question, because in front of the general Ovid which contains a lot of material, I have only a few images. It all starts with a few photos and some memories. In fact, part of the challenge of the film is to work cinematically, with images, and with space. This is not easy. This means that I not only want to make a documentary using these interviews, but it is also an exploitation of the image as memory. There is a very beautiful relationship between memory and cinema, which is that both are at the borders of verbal language. For me, the film is about getting closer to my father and getting to know him better from another dimension. It is also knowing what father-son relationships mean, when the father dies, what happens to memory and how it is constructed.

—Now, after the tour and the shoot, do you know your father better than Ovid?
-I think I know my father better than Ovid. And not just because I talked to people, but also because I looked at a lot of archival material, and listened to a lot of interviews. I feel closer to it, which doesn't mean I haven't been there before, but it just so happens that death is very annoying, because it suddenly puts a wall there. Sadly, your father died when you were fifteen.

—They say the first thing we lose from people who leave is the voice. In your case, it's well documented, the father's voice, and it may continue to tell you things for the rest of your life.
– Yes, he's curious. I never thought about it that way, really, and I'm so happy. My father had a beautiful voice. But there is one thing that hurts, and that is that last year my father's voice was very bad. I still have a hard time hearing that. And it's funny, because when someone close to you dies, you go through a grieving process and all you want, but it's hard to resolve, is death. Part of the film also begins with the desire to solve death.

—Surely your father had a beautiful voice and illness spoiled it. However, he continued on stage. If he could not sing, he would recite. “Excuse me, I'm a little constipated,” he said at a concert in Viveres de Valencia. How did he live through all this?
– I'm sorry I can't tell you much about that, because that's a good part of the movie. I'm trying to understand that. I don't know if the answer is worth it to you. I'm trying to understand how the disease took hold, because one thing that's very depressing when someone dies when you're young, when you're 15, is trying to figure out what made them suffer, what made them happy. And I want to know how death lives, and do some exploring. But not just physical death, but also, in a way, the death of political voice.

—He talked about silence since the 1980s, when singing was allowed.
– He doesn't stop singing, but they stop hiring him.

—With the new Valencian government, we are witnessing very difficult repeal attempts. From all kinds of musicians, poets and even magazines. Are you afraid that after a few years in which Ovid became a standard, this official silence will now return?
—Ovid's personality has already reached a level that would be impossible for them, that. I think my father, in the 1980s, was already an uncomfortable character and had already witnessed this silence in his life. Later, it became very clear here when they tried to make it the Year of Ovidi and the People's Party voted no because they couldn't celebrate the year of the person who said “either we all play or we end the fight”. I never expected there to be an institutional desire to exonerate Ovid. I feel, especially since 2010, when the crises started to be very constant and latent, that young people are re-appropriating Ovid. The new music groups felt that what he said was right. Institutionally, I'm not worried, but I'm very glad they took it from the base and took it over.

—Where were you when you were there? It's your first work as a director. Was it inevitable, starting this journey?
-I'm very glad I did this, because it's an exercise in being honest with myself. For many years I have had the idea of ​​reuniting with my parents in pictures. But it was a completely different idea. I'm talking about the years 2015 or 2016, with a small camera I had already recorded, but the idea I had was completely far from what we did now. Perhaps he felt more about the idea of ​​vindicating his character, Ovid, who between the seventies and eighties published an album annually. I was not born.

—Do you want to add anything?
—I want to thank Ovidi 4 for participating in supporting this fundraiser. It is a way to breathe out the love that many have for Ovid, whether they have met him or not. I know that both Ovid and now Estelles have problems to admit in the institutional sphere, but then you look at the foundations and I think there is infinite love and admiration in one and in the other. For me, as one of his daughters, I find it beautiful. I couldn't ask for more. It is poetic justice, that the people are the ones who honor him.