THE QUINCE TREE SUN

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The Quince Tree Sun was filmed during the fall of 1990 in the house of the couple of artists Antonio López and María Moreno. It was later to be considered the Film of the Nineties according to the survey made by the Cinematheque of Ontario between international film libraries and festivals. The idea of the film emerged while the director, Víctor Erice, accompanied the painter when he was working in three urban views, recording his working method and exploring the recreation of what the artist saw through the camera. Then when Antonio told Víctor that he was going to start painting a quince tree in his garden, the filmmaker recalled a dream that the painter had told him and conceived the film. Antonio would try to capture the sun of that season and its effects on the tree before its fruits would begin to fall off, while Víctor would follow this process that he would later join to the dream the artist had told him. The filming began on 29 September, 1990.

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The film itself is an artistic exercise that attempts to capture another: the one conducted by the painter in his struggle against the elements to truthfully represent what he sees and feels at the sight of that quince tree. Antonio’s struggle thus became the struggle of Víctor; the filmmaker was concurrently confronting the technical complexities while trying not to interfere in the process of painting, in order not to alter it. The painter facing a seemingly trivial motif, a tree, tried to capture reality through his eyes. As Antonio López himself explained to Víctor Erice: "If you have the will to see it, the whole universe is contained within a tree." (Statement of V. Erice in the Spanish TV Show Versión Española, TVE2, 16 November 1999). During the days López painted and drew it he "accompanied the tree;" not only facing it but being with it, while its transformation continued.

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The presence in this film of María Moreno, wife of Antonio, was not limited to the one she had before the cameras, since it was instrumental behind them, serving as executive producer and achieving the successful completion of the project, given the film obtained no subsidy.

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In 1992 the film won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival: The Jury’s and Critics’ Awards. It was officially released on January 20, 1993.

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In May 2017, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the appearance of the film at the Cannes Film Festival, the digitisation of the original to 4K DCP was presented in the "Cannes Classics" section. This process has been made by the Filmoteca de Catalunya under the supervision of the director of the film, Víctor Erice, who has also reviewed the montage.

​BHC
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Awards:

​Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival, 1992

Critics Prize, Cannes Film Festival, 1992

Gold Hugo, Festival of Chicago, 1992

1st Prize, International Festival of Uruguay, 1993

Best Spanish Director, ADIRCE, 1993

Best Film of the Nineties, Cinematheque Ontario, 1999

​Cannes Classics, Festival Cannes, 2017

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World rights of the film owned by CAMM CINCO S.L.
estudioantoniolopez@gmail.com

To find out about Mr. Víctor Erice's workshops, please go to the following website: https://www.rosebudtalleresdecine.com
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