The must-see: Lucía y el sexo
Shot mostly on the beaches of Formentera, Lucía y el sexo (2001) is the fifth feature film by Spanish director Julio Medem. Lucía, played by Paz Vega, leaves her job as a waitress in Madrid to go in search of peace and quiet on an island in the Mediterranean: Formentera. As she walks and wanders, she begins to remember moments shared with her writer lover Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), whom she believes to be dead, but whose characters seem to blend into reality. Playing with the past and the present, Julio Medem constructs a complex narrative while adding a completely assumed aesthetic and sexual freedom. Paz Vega is flamboyant, which will earn her the Goya for best female director in 2002. Among the emblematic places of the film, go after a short walk to the cliffs of Cape Barbaria, with its lighthouse that dominates the landscape. At the foot of the lighthouse, you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of intoxication in which the film takes you, and visit the Cova Foradada, a natural cave whose entrance can be seen in one of the main sequences. Be careful though, the ground is slippery.
The dose of chills: La cueva
Speaking of caves, the island more recently hosted the filming of Alfredo Montero's 2014 horror thriller La cueva (The Cave). The San Valero cave, 355 meters long and one of the largest on the island, becomes in this film an unknown cave that five unwary vacationers decide to explore. What they discover inside will ruin your appetite if you are not used to the genre, or at least will cure you of caving forever. Too bad, because it is the only way to explore this magnificent cave. If you want to try this expedition, you should have a guide who is an expert in the field.
Escape to Formentera, even to the movies
Whatever the work, the island is always presented as a place of escape from the world. With, in the end, a solution to relearn how to live together? In Formentera by Ann-Kristin Reyels (2012), it is the couple Nina and Ben who try to rebuild their lives during their vacation. In Formentera Lady by Pau Durà (2018), on the contrary, Samuel is an artist who moved to Formentera during the 70s, when British rock bands like King Crimson came to recharge their batteries on the island (true - their song Formentera Lady actually gives the film its name). It is only the arrival of his daughter and granddaughter, whom he has never met, but who he will have to take care of, that will upset his daily life as a hippie musician playing banjo.
You will have understood that escape is a recurring theme in Formentera, corresponding wonderfully to the beauty of these landscapes and these beaches bathed in sunshine that live to the rhythm of the waves. The ideal place to enjoy a moment of tranquility, and cinema.
