Roberto Bueso’s “El Mal Padre” (“The Bad Father”) is a main competition entry at San Sebastián and a tragicomic examination of parental mistakes and one son’s effort not to repeat them. Film Factory handles international sales on the title.
Eduard Fernández, a four-time Goya winner and recent recipient of Spain’s National Cinematography Award whose recent credits include “Marco” (2024), plays Santiago Balmes, a celebrated writer and academic. After receiving a terminal diagnosis, Santiago gathers his estranged adult children in the hope of healing old wounds. What follows is a portrait of a stubborn father attempting to make amends and a quiet reckoning with how limited such an effort can be when it comes too late.
The cast includes Adam Jezierski (“Vota Juan,” 2019), Francesco Carril (“The New Years,” 2024) and Meritxell Calvo (“Burning Body,” 2023). Bueso wrote the screenplay with Óscar Díaz Cruz.
“El Mal Padre” is Bueso’s third feature, following “La Banda” (2019) and “Llenos de Gracia” (2022), both of which screened at Spain’s Málaga Festival. The new film marks his first selection in San Sebastián’s main competition.
Fernando Bovaira’s MOD Producciones and MOD Pictures produced the film with Misent Producciones and Atresmedia Cine. Atresmedia, Netflix and Valencian public broadcaster À Punt participated, with financing from Spain’s ICAA. Alex Catalán was the cinematographer. Caramel Films will release the film in Spanish theaters on Nov. 20.
A story rooted in personal change
Bueso said the project grew out of losing his father and becoming a father himself, describing the filmmaking process as therapeutic. Starting from his own experience, he explained, gave him a foundation for working with conviction and honesty. His writing partner, Díaz Cruz, also became a father for the first time while they were developing the story. The two realized that the questions they were asking centered on “a fear of facing fatherhood.”
Bueso said their generation has reflected on how many ideas held by the previous generation about the role of men, and therefore fathers, can no longer be applied to their own lives. The film tries to bring those ideas into dialogue rather than settle them.
Keeping a difficult character human
Fernández has spoken about the difficulty of playing someone so unlikeable. Bueso said the actor and director never discussed specific red lines. They wanted Santiago to be emotionally clumsy: a man who has made many mistakes in his emotional life and caused great pain around him, yet still tries to justify himself.
The aim was not to judge the character. For Bueso and Fernández, it was important to preserve Santiago’s harshness while also giving him charisma and a sense of humor. They sought to show his mistakes and contradictions, but also allow him moments of vulnerability and honest reflection on the damage he has caused the people around him. Bueso called the search for that balance with Fernández a beautiful process.
A more intimate production
In scale, “El Mal Padre” is more intimate than Bueso’s first two features. He said the film has ended up closer to him. Though he remains fond of his earlier work, he felt the third feature allowed him to go deeper into his own vision and sensibility. Every project, he noted, is shaped by the circumstances in which it comes to life. With this film, he worked with themes that were closer to him and involved greater maturity. He added that he always tries to be honest about what he is telling.
Valencia as emotional landscape
The film was shot entirely in the Comunidad Valenciana. Bueso, who is from Valencia, said he knows his homeland very well and that its landscapes are part of his emotional memory. He recalled childhood summers defined by a particular light and by the presence of the sea and the rocks.
For him, it was a privilege to share that childhood Arcadia with the characters, especially the children. He wanted them to return to the place where their family was still together before everything fell apart, and for that same place to give them the chance to recreate a similar image, even if only for a moment.