Los Javis storm global cinema with 'La Bola Negra.' It might mean Oscar glory for Netflix

NEW YORK (AP) — For the Spanish writing-directing duo Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, having their film, “La Bola Negra,” selected earlier this year for the Cannes Film Festival was meaningful, partly because they were relatively unknown.

“(Cannes director) Thierry Frémaux was like, ‘I love this movie. Who are you?’” says Ambrossi, laughing.

But five months later, there are few in global cinema who aren’t now familiar with Ambrossi and Calvo. The directing pair, known in Spain as Los Javis, have taken the movie world by storm with an audacious queer epic that’s brought them to the center of the Oscar race .

“La Bola Negra,” which Netflix will release in select theaters Friday, is about the interconnected lives of three gay men across a history that spans the early 20th century, the Spanish Civil War and the modern day. “La Bola Negra” tells a story of generational pain and queer legacy with a grand, lyrical melancholy.

After a rapturous response in Cannes, Calvo and Ambrossi were almost instantly catapulted onto the global stage. They shared the festival’s award for best director with Pawel Pawlikowski (“Fatherland”). Netflix emerged victorious in a bidding war. Now, the streamer is giving “La Bola Negra” a 46-day exclusive run in cinemas, the longest ever for the company.

Expectations are high. “La Bola Negra” — a $15 million Spanish film — is expected to challenge “The Odyssey” for best picture.

For Ambrossi, 42, and Calvo, 35, it’s been a head-spinning rise. They went almost straight from a darkened editing suite to the bright lights of the Cannes premiere. Since then, with the help of some therapy, they’ve gotten used to the dramatic shift in their lives. In an interview last month, the pair warmly greeted a reporter and soon fell into considering why “La Bola Negra” has struck such a nerve.

“I hear a lot, ‘It was so poetic.’ Maybe audiences aren’t used to that because movies are supposed to be liked by everyone at the same time,” Ambrossi says. “People are asking themselves: Why was I crying?”

“Every generation needs that big movie that speaks to their desires, their warmth,” says Calvo. “People really connect to that feeling of: Don’t lose your life, just live. Just make the decision you want to make. We only have now.”

Beginning with the sound of a mournful trumpet, “La Bola Negra” (“The Black Ball” in English) opens with the story of Sebastián (played by the Spanish singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente in his screen debut), a musician who, after the bombing of his village, joins the Nationalist army. There, he becomes infatuated with an imprisoned freedom fighter named Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau) recuperating in a military hospital.

But that story is only the spine of a movie that reaches both into the past and into the future. Rafael’s relationship with the (real) poet Federico García Lorca involves their private struggle as gay men in a strictly heterosexual military world — a struggle that includes the preservation of a work about gay identity, dignity and survival begun by Lorca before his assassination by Nationalist forces in 1936.

“It’s a way of honoring our grandparents and our LGBTQ elders,” Calvo says. “They fought for us. They died for us. We were crying on the set every day.”

“We have forgotten them,” adds Ambrossi. “It was not that long ago. My grandmother is 90. It was yesterday, and we have forgotten that.”

Ambrossi and Calvo are far more glamorous than most filmmakers. They both began as actors. Their dark curls and expressive eyes suggest they belong in front of the camera rather than behind it. In Spain, they are celebrities.

They have been judges on the Spanish edition of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” They have been game-show panelists and award-show hosts. And Ambrossi and Calvo's films and TV series have won them a wide range of fans, including Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close , both of whom co-star in “La Bola Negra.” Pedro Almodovar , the master Spanish filmmaker, is a producer on the film.

Calvo and Ambrossi were a couple for years until making “La Bola Negra,” an ironic development for a deeply emotional movie about love.

“Every project is a road to the unknown and we know we’re going to be different at the end of the road,” says Calvo. “We faced desire, love and all these complex feelings.”

As they completed the film, the pair split romantically, and decided to go their separate ways professionally. But by the time Ambrossi and Calvo reached Cannes, they reversed course.

“We have been working together forever,” Ambrossi says. “I don’t know what it is to be a director if he’s not there. It’s going to stay that way. We love to work together.”

“It’s natural to wonder what’s next,” says Calvo, nodding. “But we won best director, the two of us. Très chic. It’s like: Yes, we are unstoppable together.”

“La Bola Negra” has already been a box-office smash in Spain, setting records for an independent film. In September, it won the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award , confirming its Oscar status. “La Bola Negra” will soon reach American audiences, and Oscar voters. If the film continues to garner such an emotional response from moviegoers, it could even lead Netflix to the streamer's first best-picture win.

“Netflix understood perfectly that we did a movie for theaters," says Ambrossi. “Even with the round borders of the 35 mm, it is made for that. But they understood and we understood that it’s a movie with a powerful message, and being with Netflix, it’s going to go directly to the people. It’s a movie that could really change consciousness.”

A common compliment “La Bola Negra” receives is that its historical sweep and stylish telling suggest a movie with a much heftier budget. But for Los Javis, this is part of the power of being a duo.

“Being two really helps you,” Ambrossi says. “You can do more with less. He can be rehearsing and I can be thinking about the next day with production design.”

He smiles. “It makes us big.”