THE MAIN CHARACTERS

This is a story with many implications, has a choral cast, but the different protagonists of the Republican side make up a single character with many edges, who we see evolve and fight to achieve an end, confronting the antagonistic rebel side that harasses them. 

Real characters coexist with others who are invented but who existed, such as the anonymous women and men who collaborated in the mission to save the Treasure.

Among the real ones, the main ones are Manuela Ballester, painter and Republican activist, and her husband Josep Renau, poster designer and in charge of the transfer of the Treasure for the government. Individually and as a couple, they have the character and great strength to be the protagonists of the film. Their obstinacy and dedication to their mission, their dynamics and clashes as a couple and also as professionals; their preparation, their activism, their willingness to serve and their contradictions. 

Throughout the film, their naïve idealism evolves from initial illusion, to the bitterness of the loser, with flight and exile, but without losing their integrity. His graphic work in the service of propaganda and his intellectual figure deserve to be remembered.

The role of the women in this film is on a par with that of the men, as they exercised political and social activism, as well as looking after their families.

Rosa Chacel, poet, activist and volunteer nurse, and her husband Timoteo Pérez, painter and director of the Junta del Tesoro, make up another tandem of personalities who complement each other and also carry the weight of the narrative.

Timoteo Pérez Rubio, a wiry man with few words and no political ideology, abandons his job to take charge of the mission, managing the three-year journey full of dangers. 

He made a deal with museums in Europe to leave when the situation in the Republic was unsustainable, and guaranteed their return with the difficult signing of a treaty under the bombs. He is a man of integrity, who swallows suffering and under his clerical appearance hides a hero. 

Azaña, the last president of the Republic, who oversaw the safeguarding and exile of the works and returned them to Franco's government, is another role with great weight in the story; the political will to appease in the face of external and internal enemies, and fatalism in the face of an unjust defeat.

Manuel de Arpe y Retamino, curator of the Prado, accompanies the paintings all the way and recomposes Goya's works damaged in an accident. Disenchanted with the Republic but loyal to art, he obeys orders as a professional but does not share the ideals of his fellow travellers and doubts that the journey is a good idea.

Among the fictional characters who represent the people, there are those who did the hard work, suffered and lost the war but managed to carry out their mission. We become familiar with drivers and militiamen, who reappear throughout the story, increasingly worn and weathered. We also meet civilians, and in them we see the evolution of the people who suffered through the war.