“As a ballet, it is truly splendid; moreover, the narrative link – or motivation – is masterfully conceived. Magnificent colour cinematography, as well as the overall execution and the various elements brought into play. As for the matter of it being ‘different’ – well, that is another story entirely!”
Thus spoke film censor (and editor-in-chief of the newsreel Actualidades UFA) Alberto Reig in his notes on Diferente, the first unambiguously gay film made in Spain – at the height of Francisco Franco’s fascist reign! And Reig was not the only member of the censorship board to enthusiastically embrace the magnificently kitschy story of a spoiled upper-class brat, with a library full of Wilde, Proust and García Lorca, who refuses to follow in his businessman father’s footsteps and instead opts for an artist’s life of license and debauchery.
Luis María Delgado, chosen as an executive confidant in technical matters by the project’s true auteur, actor-dancer-choreographer Alfredo Alaria, claimed in an interview that a representative of the church called it “[…] the first truly artistic film I have ever seen in my life!”
Olaf Möller