The first season of

paralyzed the Cuban audience with its 13 episodes.

What did your success consist of?

Perhaps because it was a product that was aesthetically cared for to the extreme, a luxury cast of actors or because it touched on visceral issues of society that connected with the public from the first moment.

The series ─directed by Magda González Grau and written by Amílcar Salatti─ ended and left the viewer thirsty for that dose of poetry that Amalia's classes intrinsically brought, for more adventures of the 9th 3rd grade students or to reveal those gray areas behind the internal conflicts of each of the characters.

The first season ended and the boys from 9th 3 grew up and now they return dressed in blue, in high school, in a second season, with darker and crueler problems such as drug addiction or the death of Leonardo's little brother.

The leap in time, the departure of some of the actors who played the main roles, and Amalia's transition from a high school teacher to a pre-university teacher, were perhaps the biggest concerns of a hypercritical audience like the Cuban one, who judges more strongly the audiovisual products of the patio.

However, the script was masterfully conceived and from the first chapter the new characters were introduced and the situations of both seasons were concatenated in a thread that remains linear (talking about stories that were and others that arise).

What brings new the second season of Calendar?

“From the point of view of audiovisual production, the only difference between one season and the other is that we changed the director of photography and Ana María González took on that task.

However, we tried to make it look like the first one to maintain an aesthetic unit and coherence”, says Magda González Grau in an interview with

“There are some differences because Ana María likes to work more with contrasting photography,” she adds.

Likewise, although the specialists in charge of costume design changed, they tried to defend the same line in the aesthetics of the characters that continued.

“The rest was the same.

My concept of realization is quite realistic.

My aesthetic is not similar to the video clip and I try to constantly move the scenes.

I am convinced that communication is established with a production that is attractive, but that works from the dramaturgy of those scenes”, she explains.

For Magda, it is a premise to tell well from the point of view of photography, sound, soundtrack, what is written and acted.

“I do a technical script─ work prior to the recording─, and then the staging with the actors.

In Magda's opinion, in the first season there was an attempt, which in the end was unsuccessful, to tell a story in each chapter.

“For example, number two focused on Nagüe, number three on Orestes, number five on Maritza, number seven a bit on Maykel… They were isolated experiments to focus on a conflict in each chapter.

One was Amalia, but four, six, eight, and nine were choral chapters.

"What was happening?

And they reproached us for that and it worried me a lot, that conflicts arose, were resolved and then that character remained in the background and did not have a strong story to continue breathing until the end.

That happened to us with the topic of Noemi and the addiction to cell phones, for example.

“When we were planning the second one we said that we would do it differently and that we wanted them to be stronger conflicts because the boys were in the PRE.

In addition, due to the reception that the series had received and the reproach that they made us that we had not delved into some plots, we knew that the only way to do it was for all the conflicts to remain in force throughout the season”.

The commitment of the production team was to raise the problems of each character from the outset, and then they will grow throughout the series until they are resolved in the final chapters.

“This structure is much more effective.

.

The only thing we need is a spectator who is paying attention all the time”.

The director believes that this new way of telling in the series is an achievement and a strength because attention does not diminish.

“They are chapters of almost fifty minutes and people say that they left immediately, that they last very little.

It's good that the public wants to see more!"

Second season of Calendar.

Photo: Taken from the social networks of the cast.

-Now that you see the finished product, what would you have done differently?

-Although when you are watching the series you always find things that you would do differently, I am very satisfied with the performances, with the casting.

There were characters like Inés, Leonardo, Sofía, who in the first season were weaker and in this season they have very strong conflicts and the actors have known how to defend them very well.

“I am happy with the work of Jacqueline Arenal, Natacha García…I am always very critical of myself when I see the chapters from the edition.

It's not that I regret it, but I say 'this could have been done better or given more time'.

Occupational hazards.

However, I am satisfied with how the population is accepting it because they have re-enlisted after a year.

“We are showing hard topics, but without giving a recipe.

We want to prove that, if values ​​are maintained, the essence of human beings, it is possible to live better and overcome all these conflicts.

Humanity, generosity, honesty, are qualities that make human beings able to survive the worst things.

The series goes that way and people feel that.

“A fictional series is not reality itself, but a reflection.

That means that everything goes through the director's mirror.

Amílcar Salatti took everyday situations and then passed them through his sensitivity so that we can learn from it and be better human beings.

That is the goal of

.

We are satisfied if with this we can make people reflect on their behavior, on how to face the shortcomings.

That we do not feel the misery of the other, but that we worry about being a better society”.

***

The third season of the series is being recorded.

Magda González Grau confesses that now that she sees the result of the second one, she is getting tougher because she is learning from her mistakes.

Themes of religion and disabilities come into play.

“The other day at the recordings, Clarita García ─ who plays Amalia ─ told me that she felt that all the scenes in the third season were very hard.

Although she is a very responsible actress with what she does, I tried throughout the shooting plan to always put a hard scene every day and others less.

“It's a closure and we all feel every time we do a scene that it's the last.

There is no more

and that fills us with emotion, but at the same time it saddens us because we are closing a cycle”.

Now it's time to enjoy this second installment, feel the characters and make their conflicts ours because, after all, the success of

is precisely in its ability to connect with the public and that each viewer can be one more of the students that they sit in a classroom to delight in Amalia's passion for literature.

Listen to the interview with Magda González Grau:

Second season of Calendar.

Photo: Taken from the social networks of the cast.

Second season of Calendar.

Photo: Taken from the social networks of the cast.

Second season of Calendar.

Photo: Taken from the social networks of the cast.

(Taken from Young Cuba)

See also:

Magda González on Calendar: "Success was achieved when we connected the viewer with reality" (+ Photos)