Guadalajara (Mexico), March 4 - Contemporary life is too "boring" to make movies about, Spanish director Fernando Trueba, who much prefers period pieces, said.

"It makes me feel a lot freer, because when you do a story that occurred in the past, you can fantasize and concentrate on talking about things that are really important," the 58-year-old director said the day before the inauguration of the Guadalajara International Film Festival.

The Spaniard, who gave Friday a masterly lecture to cinema students, is screening in this western Mexican city his 2012 film "El Artista y la Modelo" (Artist and Model), which he wrote and directed.

Set in 1943 France during the German occupation, the film tells the story of a famous old sculptor who meets a young Spanish girl who escaped from a refugee camp and who revives his enthusiasm for creating his final work.

Trueba confessed that he enjoys setting his films in times gone by, since "it's like taking a leap into another world" that is more exciting than life today, which is all about technology, computers and cell phones.

The director who won an Oscar in 1994 said the film is strongly influenced by his long-time admiration for Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, above all in the later stages of his life.

He said the first work of contemporary art that he saw when he was 13-years old was Picasso's "Painter and Model," which impressed him so much that he believes it laid the groundwork for his latest film.

For a week, the 28th Guadalajara International Film Festival will screen close to 250 films from 42 countries, and will have Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland as its guest-of-honor countries.  (IANS)