ANNA MARIE DE LA FUENTE

Spanish helmer Fernando Trueba took home the 1993 foreign-language film Oscar for his period dramedy “Belle Epoque.” More than two decades later, his younger brother, David, is hoping to bring a second Oscar into the family with his Beatles-themed road movie “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed.”

Trueba, the youngest of eight siblings, is no rookie at the foreign-lingo film Oscar game. His 2003 drama “Soldiers of Salamina” repped Spain in the category, but didn’t get nominated.

He might have a better chance this time. “Living Is Easy” is tipped to be among the 15 favorites out of the record 83 entries in the Academy’s foreign-language film race. Outsider Pictures released it in the U.S. in the summer when it took in nearly $13,000.

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La entrada ‘Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed’ Gets a Little Help From the Beatles aparece primero en David Trueba.

How did you come across the story of a schoolteacher who met John Lennon in 1966?
I was in Almeria, in the south of Spain, where my family went a lot, and I opened the paper and read a story about a monument on Lennon, because it was 40 years since he came there to film How I Won the War. And I read about this teacher explaining that he was 42 at the time and he made a trip to meet John Lennon with these notebooks of Beatles lyrics that he used to teach English to his students. He spent 15 minutes with him, and he used a Spanish expression: he said Lennon «seemed to me like a perfect caballero».

But the films also includes two other central characters, a young boy running away from home and a young pregnant teen.
When I saw the story about the teacher, I said to my daughter, «Here’s a great character for a movie.» I didn’t say, «Here’s a great movie». But some months later it clicked with a story that happened in my family, when my brother ran out because he wanted long hair.

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La entrada David Trueba. Living is Easy With Eyes Closed (Spain) aparece primero en David Trueba.

El Oscar está tan caro entre una pléyade de naciones hambrientas de gloria que resulta imposible garantizar incluso una nominación, pero la ovación, al menos no podrá quitársela nadie. David Trueba (Madrid, 1969) recibió el aplauso y la entrega incondicional del público de uno de los templos históricos de Hollywood, el Egyptian Theatre, volcado con su cine narrativo y sincero de ‘Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados’, durante el vigésimo aniversario de la muestra de cine español en Hollywood. (…)

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La entrada A triunfar en Hollywood, 20 años después de ‘Belle Epoque’ aparece primero en David Trueba.

Más difícil que conocer a John Lennon. El profesor que corre detrás del beatle en Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados se embarca ahora en un periplo más largo y complejo todavía: los premios Oscar. El filme de David Trueba, ya ganador del Goya de este año al mejor filme, es el elegido por la Academia de cine española para intentar optar a la estatuilla al mejor largo de habla no inglesa. Tras su primer goya el cineasta aspira ahora al máximo galardón del mundo del cine, un premio que se le escapa a las películas españolas desde Mar adentro en 2004. (…)

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La entrada ‘Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados’ representará a España en los Oscar aparece primero en David Trueba.