October 20, 2026 – Transcript

00:00Okay, hi my name is Gabriel. It's nice to meet you. Can we tell you tell us about yourself? My name is ECR Boyain. I am from Spain and I have won a lot of awards like Best Director at Goya Films and it is a pleasure to be here. Wonderful, I just have a couple questions to ask you. What inspired you to focus the Spanish migrant community in the documentary?

00:28No, well it is an issue that has been very relevant in my country. A lot of people have been migrating to other places for a bunch of opportunities and I felt that this movie was very important to make so people could see the reality a bunch of my people are living through.

00:46Especially in the story in my movie in Tierra Extraña Maria is a woman who left Spain to Edinburgh in Scotland and she goes in order to find a better life. She talks about the difficulties of being in a new country, new weather, new people and how hard it is to have to adapt to those

01:09conditions. So you know these films I make are very essential for my well-being so I could show the world what my people go through. Perfect, wonderful. And how do you approach these personal stories with migrants addressing the broader economic state?

01:31Well this film that was in 2008 my country of Spain was in a very bad economic state and could you repeat the question again? Yeah, how do you approach capturing personal stories within migrants especially within the economic state? You know it is very tough to find these people sometimes but the way I capture it

01:57is I try to get the most real picture as possible. No, I don't try and add like how do I explain this? I don't want to make it like a rainbow like all good and that all their lives are good. No, I want to get the rough moments. For example in the story of Daniel who was a construction worker in Spain he couldn't find work and then he moved to Scotland and a lot of people would think that he would just from this moment find work and it would all work out but it wasn't like that.

02:27It was hard. He had to deal with the in Scotland they have a thing I forgot the name exactly but it is essentially where you are not guaranteed zero hours of work but you are always available 24 hours and this is tough because you never have time to go back home you always have to be ready but you're not in assured work so you know that is the way I always try and capture my films.

02:53I get the most real images possible and yeah that is how I go about making these movies. Perfect. I love how you incorporate personal stories of people in the film. I've noticed that memory and solidarity appeared a lot as themes within the film. How do you think these concepts kind of shape their identities in in another land a foreign land? Well no as solidarity

03:22is a very important thing when it comes for people to go to different countries. I've especially seen this many times in my life but in the case of these people in the space in Scotland it is what makes them it was what shapes them to be able to keep progressing in life. Having that remembering where you're from all this and having people around you that have been in

03:48similar circumstances is extremely important for your well for your mental state well-being all that and you know yeah solidarity is is essential these people need it it is just a part of who they are now after moving to a foreign land you need to mean you have you need to have a strong

04:12sense of it inside to be able to keep going. For sure for sure and I noticed there's a financial crisis that showed up a lot in economic problems in Spain was facing and made life much more difficult for younger people and you quoted something saying they're cheating us people leave because there is no work here let's say and let's say that the job it jobs that exist have

04:38terrible conditions what do you think about that? No it is true the economic state we can't deny has been very poor and yeah the people have been cheated on they've been unjustly put in situations that they should never be put in and can you repeat that one more time? At the end you said

05:04they're cheating us people leave because there's no work here let's say and let's say let's say that the jobs that exist have terrible conditions especially in my and apart from Spain I'm from there's many workers that are very unpaid very

05:32unjustly treated were really unsafe or conditions yeah no it's it's the truth and it has to be told to everyone. Perfect well it was good interviewing you it was nice meeting you and learning your story thank you of course