What Laura Gost was like according to her father: “'Annie Hall' sparked his passion for cinema”

Palm "It was a shot in the dark." As he says this through the speakerphone, you can sense the tone, even now, of astonishment; and a half-laugh from someone who doesn't know how it all happened. It's like a sigh that seems to express "Who would have ever told us!" The shot in question was giving him a notebook: Laura's Tales, when she was seven years old. "It was a way to stimulate a hobby, we didn't know where it would go," says Francesc Gost, who gave the notebook to his daughter, Laura Gost. Of course, it stimulated her: at 31, she has written three novels –The big cousin, The world becomes simple and The ashes in the pool– and some plays. Since that gift, she's been writing stories and tales, and for a few months now, Laura has been telling them to her first child. By the way: when he was born, a friend of Francisco's said Laura Gost was the name of a screenwriter. He wasn't wrong.

The writer from Puebla owes her name to Laura Ingalls of Little House on the Prairie because his mother, Maria Magdalena Seguí, was a great admirer. He came into the world on September 16, 1993, and Francisco says he only remembers a bustle, "or not even that," he notes. He was about to turn two: "I don't remember why, but she cried a lot and there was no way to calm her down. I took him to the room and got the BrandWe sat on the bed, and I read the newspaper from first to last line. We spent maybe 40 minutes. I could feel myself crying, but I concentrated on the paper. She looked at me, her eyes watering, surprised by my impassiveness. "Is that it, dear?" I said. She nodded, and we left. Surely, if I did that today, I'd go to prison for it. This was the only time I can remember Laura doing something like that."

The Sant Antoni festivities inspire passion in most villagers, but anyone who knows the writer knows that she's not into them, nor is she sold on them; "and that's even though on Sant Antoni in '94, when I wasn't even a year old, I went with her to Casa Miss to watch the devils dance," notes her father, who also talks about a video from more than 25 years ago where Laura is seen singing. Me and a shepherd. She was chatty, interacted with people, and was receptive to sounds and words, says her father, who remembers Laura's surprised face when she met her little sister, María. "She suddenly sensed that something big had happened; she approached with tremendous respect, both excited and scared." The sisters suddenly understood each other: "They've had a very strong bond since they were little," Francisco celebrates.

Like most dolls from the late 90s, Laura saw all the Disney and Pixar movies. But when she was nine years old, her father and mother made her a proposal: "We told her that, one day a week, she could watch a movie with us, as long as it was appropriate for her age. The first one she chose, at the video store, was Sweet Home Alabama. And so began his passion for cinema." At the age of 13 he saw Annie Hall, by Woody Allen, and that restlessness was finally unleashed. So much so that Laura used to accompany her father to the classic film screenings held at Sa Congregación de sa Pobla: "I was 11 years old and I used to come to see nostalgic classic films," recalls Francesc, who still finds the situation cracking.

Of Laura, her father says that she is restless, curious, and always has a "why?" and a "sorry" on her lips. "As a child, she showed a special sensitivity: if she sensed that she might have been annoying or had been inopportune, an almost natural instinct for reparation would emerge." He also highlights his eldest daughter's strong sense of justice, of what is right and what is not: "She is a noble person, I say this with conviction."