The Mediapro Studio’s “The 47,” placing star Eduard Fernández is a pole position in the Best Actor Goyas race, is breaking box office records in Spain.
Directed by Marcel Barrena, who already showed in “Mediterráneo: The Law of the Sea” his sense of broad audience appeal on movies engaging social issues, results for “The 47” will do nothing to discourage TMS as it builds its movie output as one of its key growth strategies in a more challenged market environment.
Released Sept. 6 by A Contracorriente Films, Spain’s biggest indie distributor and a national film champion, and largely shot in Catalan, “The 47” became last week the most watched Catalan-language movie in cinema theaters over the last 40 years.
Soon after release, it rocketed to No. 1 in box office charts on Sept. 18, a Spectators Day in Spain when tickets are cheaper, attracting bigger audiences. No other Catalan-language movie has achieved that in the last decade.
At €2.9 million ($3.1 million) through Nov. 10, “El 47” has now played 10 weeks at theaters in Spain.
Reasons look to cut several ways.
“The 47” has become “a national social and media phenomenon,” notes its producer, Javier Méndez, The Mediapro Studio head of fiction. “It has connected in an extraordinary way with audiences, with its message of integration of people who came to build our cities’ outer radius, a message which is still as relevant today than ever, with an outstanding revindication of a community spirit,” he added.
Also, judged from local reviews, “The 47” is a feel-good social movie, but real-life inspired, so long on authenticity. It tells the true story of Manolo Vital, a bus driver settled in Torre Baro, a shanty village high in the hills around Barcelona, built by immigrants, many, like Vital, from Extremadura.
In 1972, Vital organized a mass demonstration on the local motorway to successfully get running water for Torre Baró. But the neighbourhood, and the local Communist Party of Spain, of which Vital was a member, wanted public transport. Transportes de Barcelona and the Barcelona Town Hall argued hat the bad state of the streets, and their steep tight curves, meant that they couldn’t accommodate buses.
On May 7, 1978 Vital, a bus driver in Barcelona’s main public transport operator, sets out to show, at the wheel of the route 47 bus, that the authorities were wrong. On his way, he collects supporters in what became a mass celebration of outer radius working class dignity. Torre Baró got its bus route.
“The 47” also stands out, Méndez says, because of the figure of Vital, “the incarnation of the popular hero, marvellously played by Eduard Fernández,” said Méndez.
Co-written by Barrena and award-winning screenwriter-producer Alberto Marini (“Retribution,” “Sleep Tight”), the movie also forms part of The Mediapro Studio Distribution’s international sales slate.
“We hope that the film’s sense of empathy also works on an international level, as we saw a few week’s back at a Recent Spanish Cinema showcase in Los Angeles, with the “El 47” phenomenon transcending borders,” Méndez said.
The film is also a powerful demonstration of the value of mobilisation, now necessary in Spain for its centre-left Socialist Party to head off an extreme right Vox which at one time looked on track, allied with the conservative Popular Party, to win Spain’s last general elections in July 2023.
