Óscar Casas
Dan
Overview
Dan, a budding street artist, supports himself with smash-and-grab heists. But his father's return from jail reignites his demons and pushes him to flee.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Wings We Can’t See
I keep thinking about the birds.
Not the ones that fly, but the ones that don’t—the ones trapped in cages, or worse, the ones that think they’re trapped. Caged Wings, Mario Casas’ directorial debut, is a film obsessed with that tension: the gap between what we believe we’re capable of and what we actually do. It’s a story about a young man named Dan (Óscar Casas), a street artist and petty thief, who moves through the world like someone constantly testing the bars of his own invisible cage.
The film wants to be a liberation story, a quinqui fable about breaking free from the cycles of poverty and violence. But somewhere along the way, it forgets to ask the most important question: What happens when the cage is inside you?
That’s not to say Caged Wings lacks ambition. On the contrary, it’s a film that feels—sometimes too much. The camera lingers on Dan’s face in close-up, his jaw set, his eyes darting like he’s always one step ahead of something (or someone) chasing him.
The cinematography is restless, all handheld shots and sudden zooms, as if the film itself is trying to outrun its own limitations. And for a while, it works. There’s a raw, kinetic energy here, the kind that makes you lean forward in your seat.
Javier Ocaña, writing in El País, put it well: "The visual and sound energy that the film exudes emerges with its light over the few shadows." That energy is real. The problem is that it’s often the only thing holding the film together.
Casas, best known as an actor, clearly understands the power of physicality. His direction here is tactile, almost muscular. The film’s opening sequence—a smash-and-grab heist gone wrong—is a masterclass in tension.
Dan and his friend Reno (Farid Bechara) move through the streets of Barcelona like shadows, their breath visible in the cold air. The sound design is immersive: the crunch of glass underfoot, the distant wail of sirens, the way Dan’s heartbeat seems to sync with the bassline of the city. For a moment, you believe this is a film that knows its characters, that understands the weight of their choices.
Full Plot (Spoilers)
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This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsHe wrote the part he wanted at 19
Mario Casas did not cast his brother as a family stunt. Cadena SER, visiting the Madrid wrap in December 2022, reported that he wrote Dan as the role he would have wanted at Oscar Casas's age. An 18- or 19-year-old graffiti artist on Barcelona's outskirts, adult enough to have layers. "I wanted a character that I would have liked them to give me at his age." He sent Nostromo Pictures a 30-to-40-page treatment. latestnetflix.com's take is that Producers Adrian Guerra and Nuria Valls told him the base worked and to keep going.Deborah Francois, his co-writer and former partner, was in the room from lockdown onward.,
He also said directing flipped how he talks about actors. "I understand when directors speak of their actors as 'children.' I feel it that way. I have fallen in love with them. Oscar reached me. This is hard, but I even managed to forget Oscar and see the character." Cadena SER adds that about 98 percent of the cast were non-professionals, that he spent a year and a bit finding them, and that they rehearsed for three months. The only professionals he named on that visit were Oscar and Francisco Boira. Candela Gonzalez, he said, "is going to give people something to talk about." Farid Bechara plays Reno. The brothers had already shared Movistar+'s Instinto in 2019. This time Mario built the whole script around the younger one.
Wikipedia lists Caged Wings, also called My Loneliness Has Wings, as Mario's feature directing debut, from a screenplay he wrote with Francois. Nostromo produced. Warner Bros. Pictures distributed in Spain. Edu Canet shot it. Veronica Callon edited. Zeltia Montes wrote the score. Locations include Bellvitge, La Mina, and Lavapies. Oscar had to lose 8 kg for Dan. The film premiered at the Paterna Film Festival on Aug. 18, 2023, then opened theatrically in Spain on Aug. 25. Box office is listed at about 1.4 million euros. 20 Minutos later dated the Netflix drop to Jan. 19, 2024, and noted Netflix had already participated in production. IMDb's English title is My Loneliness Has Wings. Netflix's U.S. Row is Caged Wings. Runtime is 1 hour 42 minutes.,,
Qinqui homework, then a January catalog
He named his reference shelf on the SER set visit. Carlos Saura's Deprisa, Deprisa. Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine. Barrio. El Bola. Siete Virgenes. He grew up on Barcelona's poorer rim and wanted that texture, not a backlot version of it. He spent almost two years from the first Candela casting. He asked the producers for rehearsal time so the non-actors could improvise and "be the characters." Whether U.S. Viewers clock that quinqui lineage is another question. They get the Netflix logline. Dan, a street artist, lives off smash-and-grab jobs until his father comes home from prison. Then he runs.,
Fotogramas' Pablo Vazquez called the film, above all, Mario's love letter to Oscar. Cinemania's Enid Roman Almansa called it "a movie with a soul." El Pais' Javier Ocana called the debut "passionate, volcanic and even romantic." Those are reviews, not set leaks. There is no sourced on-set feud. The gossip is the family machine. Goya-winning older brother writes lockdown pages with an ex. Nostromo says yes. Warner takes August. Netflix takes January. Oscar drops the weight. Mario tells SER the process changed his life, and that if the movie landed even a five out of ten he would try directing again.,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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