Spain Special: CANADA

Why shouldn’t a supermodel be chased by a flying crystal, or a mum play golf with meatballs and why shouldn’t breasts be envisaged as wobbly puddings? It’s this playful sense of freedom that make the ads, promos and fashion films of directing duo CANADA such a joy to behold. Selena Schleh talks to the pair about the success of their brand of surrealism with extra sauce

It was 2011 when shots first interviewed the maverick (and misleadingly named) Spanish directing collective that is CANADA, and Lope Serrano, Nicolás Méndez and Luis Cerveró had just burst into public consciousness with a string of NSFW music videos including El Guincho’s Bombay and Battles’ Ice Cream.

Fast-forward five years and there have been some big changes: following the departure of Cerveró in 2014, the trio is now a duo and their eponymous production company has recently expanded from Barcelona to London, but one look at the video for Australian psych rockers Tame Impala’s track The Less I Know The Better – reassures us CANADA are as brilliantly bonkers as ever.

“We wanted to create a psychedelic universe, full of colours and sexiness,” says Serrano of the surreal (and saucy) story of a nubile cheerleader who’s cheating on her jock-star boyfriend with a mascot in a monkey suit. A trippy mix of live-action and hand-drawn animation (think gyrating girls clasped in giant gorilla hands), the project came about because “we hadn’t done a music video in three years, and there was something inside us that wanted to do something good,” Serrano explains.

From filth to cleanliness

Music video work may have taken a backseat in recent years, but ‘good somethings’ are being done elsewhere. Building on a successful commercials career in Spain, the pair are now exporting their stylish aesthetic around the globe: recent spots include Ageing and Heartbreak for Finish in the UK, and Method Fear No Mess in the States.

How on earth did they reconcile their brand of playful eroticism and casual nudity with the world of detergents and dishwashing tablets? “The way we work with people and the references that we look for are exactly the same,” say Méndez. “Obviously we cannot work with [the ideas of] desire, or sex, or surrealism as deeply… but we don’t feel that doing commercials is any less creative than music videos… we try to bring the same kind of intensity and sincerity.” Do they feel their style is characteristic of Spain? “We have this hedonistic way of thinking – we like vibrant images more than gloomy ones, we are related more to the sun than to the darkness,” muses Serrano, “but we wouldn’t think of CANADA as something conceptually ‘Spanish’.”

Away from advertising, they’re making a splash in fashion film – a genre that’s no stranger to a bare boob or two – with award-winning work such as Crème Caramel, part of Nowness’ #DefineBeauty series, which turned an innocent dessert into an erotic ideal. Meanwhile their 2015 short for British Vogue, Ouch! That’s Big, was a slice of French new-wave cinema-inspired whimsy, starring the multiple selves of supermodel Anna Ewers – all impeccably styled in designer togs, of course – wandering around Barcelona pursued by a flying lump of crystal.

Moving look-books these are not. The appeal of fashion film, they say, is its inherent creative freedom, which surpasses even that of music videos. “[There are] no constraints in terms of time, or script, or saying something that makes sense, or being proper story-telling… It’s a good playground to express yourself.” says Serrano.

In geographic terms, that playground has recently got a lot bigger: last year, the production company (also, confusingly, called CANADA) – which Serrano, Méndez and Cerveró set up in 2007 in tandem with their directing collective – partnered with Riff Raff Films to open a London office. Though it’s still early days (“at the moment we are just something tiny and humble”) and Barcelona remains their base, the UK capital is an “important” place to be, not least for its diversity. “Over the last hundred years, different cultures, different people have come in and created little centres of creativity,” notes Serrano. “Difference is welcomed. In Spain, we’re not so mixed as a culture.” Whether those sentiments hold true after Brexit, however, remains to be seen.

When three became two

Commercial and creative success aside, the directing union has suffered its own rifts, notably Cerveró’s decision to branch off independently. Mendez politely declines to comment on how that has changed the collective dynamic, saying only that their current partnership “is like a marriage: it takes a lot of work to make it happy. You have to be open-minded to understand and embrace a second opinion, and that is never easy – but when the magic happens the results can be amazing.” “When two things clash, they create sparks,” adds Serrano. Perhaps it was the case that when three things clashed, the blaze they sparked was simply too hot to handle.

Either way, they’re keeping the creative fires burning, having just shot a new spot for Easyjet – “We’re excited and happy, but we don’t want to create huge expectations” – and will focus on growing the London office steadily but surely. Beyond this, claims Serrano, there’s no grand plan. “We’re not very good at strategy,” he shrugs with typical Spanish insouciance, “but luckily there’s a good stream of work opportunities, so the future is being shaped every day.”