When Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – the directing duo known in their native Spain as “Los Javis” – began writing their queer epic La Bola Negra, they weren’t thinking about whether it would be stylish (which it is) or win numerous awards (which it has) or capture what they refer to as “the anti-fascist zeitgeist” (which it does). Instead, they thought only of scale. “I’m done with LGBTQ+ movies being niche,” says Ambrossi. “I was like, ‘Let’s make the biggest, gayest war movie ever.’” Job done.
At Cannes this year, the best director prize was awarded jointly to them and to Paweł Pawlikowski, who made the Thomas Mann road trip film Fatherland. La Bola Negra is now an Oscars frontrunner, with best picture and best director nominations all but guaranteed. Brimming with panache, the movie darts back and forth between three stories set in Spain: in 1932, a young man applying for membership of an exclusive casino is rejected on the grounds of his suspected homosexuality; in 1937, a callow nationalist soldier develops tender feelings for the injured republican prisoner under his watch; and in 2017, a queer historian inherits an unfinished story by Federico García Lorca. That story lends the movie its title and provides the thread that sews its strands together.
Throw in spectacular set pieces, Ken Russell-style visual flair, cameos from a blond-wigged Penélope Cruz and a Spanish-speaking Glenn Close, and the result is a maximalist collage where the Spanish civil war sits side-by-side with Grindr hook-ups. “We loved imagining scenes that you don’t usually have in queer movies,” says Ambrossi, citing the spectacular opening sequence in which a Spanish village is bombed by Italian fascists. “A lot of people have said they’ve been missing something like this. They want to buy popcorn and be given a big movie like Titanic.” His eyes widen. “This is the gay Titanic!”
Relaxing at a corner table in the restaurant of a London hotel, Los Javis represent a study in contrasts. Ambrossi is 42, dinky and loquacious, his impish face crowned with a laurel of curls. He leans forward as he talks, arms folded on the white tablecloth. The taller, taciturn Calvo, 35, is gravely handsome. Battling jet lag, he repeatedly stretches his limbs like a cat, sneaking a glance at himself in the mirror next to the table as he does so. Both men have black caterpillar eyebrows, as well as cheekbones that could double as clothing rails.
On this chilly autumn morning, Los Javis could do with some extra layers. They rub their bare arms furiously until an assistant arrives bearing hoodies. Then again, maybe the three of us have goosebumps not from the cold but from discussing their film. Ambrossi approves of this theory: “There’s a trend on TikTok where people video themselves – ‘This is us before watching La Bola Negra’ – and then it cuts to afterwards when they’re crying and hugging. All this togetherness from the cinematic experience is beautiful.” No wonder Los Javis insisted on an extended theatrical window for their film before selling the US rights to Netflix. La Bola Negra will remain in US cinemas for 47 days, a record for the streaming platform. Even Scorsese didn’t get that.
The movie also marks a personal breakthrough for the pair, who first met when they were actors. “Friends who read the script said to us, ‘Oh, you’re going there?’” recalls Ambrossi. “We’ve been writing together for 13 years about LGBTQ+ characters but it has always been, like, lesbians, trans women …” Previous collaborations include their 2017 debut film, Holy Camp!, which they adapted from La Llamada, their stage musical about a summer camp staffed by nuns. In one scene, God materialises to sing I Will Always Love You. Their 2023 series La Mesías (now streaming on Mubi) is a hypnotically bizarre tale of Christian pop stars, extraterrestrials and bad parenting. But no gay men.
What took them so long? “Sometimes you don’t want to talk about yourself,” offers Calvo, speaking up at last. “Many queer creators have projected themselves into other characters. Pedro Almodóvar, Lorca with The House of Bernarda Alba, Michael Patrick King with Sex and the City.” He flashes a rare smile. “Good show.”
Ambrossi identifies a psychological dimension to the delay: “It’s true you don’t want to be too on-the-nose. But you start wondering if there is also another reason.” In the 1932 strand of the film, the elite casino members use a system of black and white balls to vote on admitting newcomers. The black ball for no– la bola negra – becomes a symbol of queer generational shame and rejection that must be wrestled with. Is it shame, then, that kept Ambrossi from addressing his own sexuality in his work? “In my case, yes. I wasn’t ready to talk about desire or sex because I felt ashamed in some way.”
He and Calvo were already friends with their compatriot and hero Almodóvar, whose company El Deseo, meaning Desire, co-produced La Bola Negra. “I told Pedro, ‘I don’t deal well with desire.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You need to start.’ That’s when it clicked: if you don’t deal explicitly with desire, you are missing life.”
Perhaps that is why the word “explicit” crops up several times in Ambrossi’s conversation today: having been out as a gay man but under the radar in his work, he is eager now to emphasise the ways in which La Bola Negra is defiant or unequivocal. One aspect is the casting of gay actors in gay roles, most notably the Bambi-eyed singer Guitarricadelafuente, who makes his screen debut as the lovestruck soldier.
“It’s not that straight actors can’t play gay,” says Calvo. “There are no rules in art. But …” Ambrossi jumps in: “We like to do it this way. When I was 10, I watched Rupert Everett in My Best Friend’s Wedding. I wasn’t sure I was gay, but I knew he was like me. There was a truth in his eyes that I want to get in my movies.” He sighs. “Rupert Everett was so brave. He should have been James Bond.”
Calvo had an unhappy experience as a young gay actor. “I was a teenager playing a gay role on TV,” he says. “When it finished, I didn’t get many auditions. I was advised to cut my hair, not paint my nails.” A short back and sides didn’t help, though. “I guess people could still tell. So I decided to write roles for actors who don’t have space in the industry.”
Once the pair began dating as well as working together, the two-headed queer celebrity phenomenon of Los Javis was born. They were playwrights, film-makers, actors and reality TV participants, including regular judges on the Spanish version of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Being an indispensable part of Spanish cultural life came at a price. Calvo points to this now as one of the reasons he and Ambrossi separated during the making of La Bola Negra. “People would talk to me in the plural all the time, ‘It was nice to meet you guys.’ I’d be like, ‘Huh? I’m standing alone here.’ I felt I’d lost my individuality.”
Spain didn’t cope well with the breakup. “It was a big deal,” Calvo admits. “There were cameras outside my door for a month.” Keen to move on, Ambrossi displays a flicker of irritation: “I think we’ve passed through this conversation. Imagine everyone talking about your ex forever! We love to write and direct together and we’re going to keep doing that.” The matter is closed.
After all the diversifying and cross-platforming, Los Javis have reached their Pokémon-style final evolution. “From now on, we want to focus on movies,” says Calvo. No regrets, though. “The other things were important in making a statement,” Ambrossi points out. “I grew up thinking directors should be serious and monolithic. We represented a new way.” Calvo lifts a finger: “A non-binary way,” he says. “We don’t see life as stiff. We mix genres. A more flexible time is coming. Take the work seriously but not yourself.”
Before they go, there is a line in La Bola Negra that I ask them to unpack. When the modern-day researcher Alberto asks the Lorca scholar played by Glenn Close for advice on what he should do with the pages of that incomplete story, she tells him: “You’ve inherited something and you don’t know what to do with it. You are truly a Spaniard.”
Calvo is happy to help. “In Spain, we always have to be reminded by foreigners that we have a rich, interesting culture and history,” he says. Ambrossi elaborates: “It is as if pride is shameful. When someone is doing well and winning awards all over Spain, people are like, ‘Hmm. That’s not very Spanish.’ Unless it’s football.” Where does that attitude come from? “Maybe religion,” muses Calvo. “Maybe dictatorship.”
Does it apply to them? Are they destined to underplay their triumphs for ever? They offer their best you’ve-got-to-be-kidding looks, then answer in unison: “Not us.”
