Spain’s booming production begins with Isabel Coixet’s acclaimed Italian drama “Three Goodbyes” and closes with Goya Best Picture winner David Trueba’s latest film “Always Winter.” This year’s Valladolid International Film Festival, enriched by the work of two auteurs, Rafael Cobos and Diego San José, offers the strongest punch yet, at least in the eyes of the world, with a rich lineup of recent Spanish debuts and films. A complete world premiere.
Demonstrating its depth, this selection also includes world premieres by Judith Correll and Fernando Franco, winners of the Sebastian Jury Special Prize.
Variety wrote that Toronto’s bow “shines in a humane and heartfelt drama” in director Alba Rohrwacher’s “Three Goodbyes,” a “shining centerpiece of a charming, bittersweet, life-affirming film” based on the work of the late author Michela Murgia.
Director, novelist and journalist Trueba’s heartfelt film “Always Winter” is an adaptation of his 2015 novella “Blitz” and depicts another romantic breakup as landscape architect Migueli arrives for a conference in Brussels with his girlfriend Marta, his only recourse. Then she left him, leaving his emotions blown to the far north. “It’s like the emotional death of a loved one,” Trueba told Variety. “From that point on, life seems to be about surviving that absence and continuing to live despite that absence.”
One of Valladolid’s most anticipated world premieres, “Golpes” marks the feature film debut of Cobos, co-writer for most of his career with Alberto Rodríguez (“Marshland,” “The Plague”) and already an established director following the short series “Left-Handed Son.”
“It’s a thriller about blood ties and memory,” Kobos says. The film depicts a “portrait of a country unable to come to terms with its past, full of contradictions and disoriented.”
Diego San Jose, known as the co-screenwriter of Spanish Affair, the highest-grossing Spanish film in history, produced Celeste, starring Carmen Machi as a dull tax collector. In “Jakarta,” San Jose gets even meaner, with Josela, played by the incomparable badminton player Javier Cámara, the star of Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,” traveling through a nondescript Spanish town “not a capital, and without the charm of a village,” where a budding badminton champion is believed to be. Josela represented Spain at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He was eliminated in the first round. “I feel that not achieving your dreams is more similar to adult life than achieving them. And strangely enough, the losers you don’t often see in fiction are the overwhelming majority in real life,” San Jose told Variety.
Spain’s lineup for Valladolid comes in a year in which two films competed in competition at Cannes: Oliver Lacks’ Silat, which shared the Cannes Jury Prize, and Carla Simón’s Romelia, which shared the Cannes Jury Prize, marking the first time since 1988 that Spain has won the double without a Pedro Almodovar film.
The richness of Spanish cinema is such that it cannot be contained by elections in the official selections of Berlin, Cannes, Venice and San Sebastian. Playing for Valladolid will probably give him more recognition for the title as well.
Second point: France now has Spain squarely in its sights. The talented players competing in Valladolid are by no means local. Among the works released for the first time in the world, “Golpes” was co-produced with French luxury giant Playtime. Kobos’ directorial debut, The Left-Handed Son, won the top short film award in the 2022 Cannes series.
Franco’s “Subsuero” is sold by the French company El Driver. San Jose’s “Celeste” won Best Series and Best Actress (“Carmen Machi”) at France’s Seriesmania this year. Trueba, a well-known novelist who took Spain’s Académie Goyas by storm in 2013 with “Living is Easy with Your Eyes Closed,” was hailed as “the wonder boy of Iberian culture” by France’s Le Figaro newspaper when he published “Blitz.”
Coisier entered competition at Cannes in 2009 with Map of the Sound of Tokyo and opened in Berlin with Nobody Wants Night, starring Juliette Binoche.
This year’s Valladolid also highlights Spain’s gradual transition from linear arthouse to an upscale mainstream with an arthouse edge.
Franco and Correll are known for their drama, plumbing, and contradictory intimacy. “Subsuero” is a psychological drama that delves deep into family secrets, exploring the same theme in a different way. “Frontier” is a big step up in scale for Correll, her first thriller set on the Spanish-French border in 1943. The stakes could not be higher. It is a matter of life and death for Jews trapped in Nazi-occupied France, and in many cases for the Jews who led them across the High Pyrenees into Spain. That sense of tension dominates the movie.
“Always Winter” sounds like a fatally low-key drama from its title. “But as soon as you look at David Verdaguer (winner of Goya’s stand-up icon Eugenio), you can see the irony at work,” Trueba says. In fact, in the most tragic moment of the entire movie, when Marta tells Miguel that she’s leaving him, all Miguel can do is crack a joke.
Fran Araujo, executive producer of Movistar Plus + Originals, said San José “has an uncanny ability to explore complex themes without losing the sense of familiarity for the audience, which makes him so unique.”
“Golpes” is also a crossover. “We know that Cannes buyers are not only looking for festival films, but also marketable crowd-pleasers like Golpes,” said Playtime co-CEO Nicolas Brigeau-Robert.
Let’s take a closer look at the 10 titles to watch at this year’s Seminci Valladolid Film Festival, which runs from October 24th to November 24th. 1.
“This Body of Mine” (“Este Cuerpo Mío”, Afioco Gnecco, Carolina Yuste, Potenza Producciones)
You can get a glimpse of it in this excerpt from Locarno’s Spanish preview. A fascinating documentary feature road trip story about identity and friendship. Afioco, an Italian-Chilean director in transition, and his steady partner Carolina (Juste, Spain’s biggest star following Jokes and Cigarettes and Undercover) travel to Chile to ensure Afioco’s sense of acceptance for himself and his family. The film explores the psychological challenges faced by transsexuals and is shot with a sense of humor.
“Frontera” (Judith Correll, Coming Soon, Diagonal, Crespes Film, Bulletproof Cupid)
Leveraging the historical drama expertise of Banijay’s Diagonal and its core staff, this crossover of historical thrillers and arthouse social points characterizes Correll (“Elisa K.,” “15 Hours”). Set in a village high in the Pyrenees in 1943, Catalan customs officials help Jews escape from Nazi-occupied France against orders. Sold to Menemsha, the film is technically researched, genuinely tense, and gorgeously photographed, highlighting the mountains of heaven and the historical hell.
“Forastera” (Lucia Alenar Iglesias, Below Film, Presenta, Lastre Media, La Periférica Productions, Fox in the Snow, Kino Productions)
Grasshopper Films has just acquired it for the US and has signed a distribution deal with Alpha Violet, winner of Toronto’s Fiplessi Award for Emerging Filmmakers, for distribution in Spain, Japan and Sweden. In this production, Cata quietly takes on the role of the family matriarch after her grandmother suddenly dies during a sunny summer holiday in Mallorca. “Iglesias’s debut film, which deftly exploits taboo, proves an insightful and captivating look at the dark corners of grief through the familiar lens of the coming-of-age story,” Variety wrote.
“Golpes” (Rafael Cobos, Vaca Films, Grupo Tranquilo, Playtime)
In 1982 Seville, Migueli escapes prison and gathers his former crew to carry out a series of daring heists to reclaim the land where his Republican father lies in an unmarked grave. It will be deleted by the developer soon. Closing in on him is his own brother, a police officer, similarly traumatized by the death of his father, which he was unable to prevent. Boasting two of Spain’s best performers, the film is detailed and reminiscent of the era, interspersed with occasional archival footage, to deliver an ode to what has united Spain for centuries: family.
“Always Winter” (“Siempre es invierno”, David Trueba, Ikiru Films, Atresmedia Cine, Wrong Men)
Marta dumps Migueli. He is taken in for days and nights by Olga, who is more than 20 years his senior, and offers a way forward emotionally, but neither knows where. It’s a breakup story about growing up as a middle-aged adult apprentice, and a big love break in a big life cycle. Starring David Verdager, Amaia Salamanca, a world-famous actress who has starred in “Grand Hotel” and “Velvet,” and Isabelle Renaud, who starred in the Palme d’Or winning film “Eternity and a Day.”
“Jakarta” (Diego San Jose, Buendia Estudios Canarias, Mediapro Canarias)
The second sequence of the series says it all. Passing by a bleak high-rise apartment building, Josela, unshaven and wearing a tracksuit, is driven to sing the love ballad “Adoro,” but he cannot remember the lyrics. In 1992, he was stuck playing badminton at the Olympics, but when he discovered a girl who was a badminton prodigy, he decided to make her a champion. Starring the incomparable Javier Cámara (‘Talk to Her’), this is the San José sequel to Series Mania winner ‘Celeste’ from one of Spain’s most fascinating mainstream television writers.
“Last night I conquered the city of Thebes” (“Anoche conquisté a Tebas”, Gabriel Azolin, Devane Film, Filmica Galica, Bando a Parte)
In the present day, the friends trudge through the mud to an ancient Roman hot spring in the Galician countryside. There, the past and the present of ancient Rome merge, and the men confess their deepest fears. Distributed by MoreThan Films, the title made headlines at September’s Venice Days and is currently breaking overseas. Lincoln Center recently declared, “Sparkling with beauty and full of mystery, Gabriel Azorin’s feature debut is a cosmic hangout film that announces the director as a new leading voice.”
“Lionel” (Carlos Saiss, Bluconica Films AIE, Blur Media, Icónica, Promenades Films)
Cleaned up at the Málaga Mafis Works in Progress in March, this documentary/fiction hybrid has won awards from Cine y Tele, Yagan, REC Festival and now international rights handler Sideral. Saiz’s feature debut, inspired by the true story of his friend Lionel and his family (who play themselves in the film), is a Spanish-French road movie that “questions the essence of what it means to be a family,” Saiz says.
“Subsuelo” (Fernando Franco, Lapona, La Aventura, Kowalski Films, Ferdi Durke Films, Blizzard Films AIE)
The first and last contestant to compete in San Sebastian, Franco’s registration change comes after three dramas: Scars (2013), Moril (2017) and The Rite of Spring (2022), with an oppressive soundtrack that foregrounds the genre’s transition to a neo-noir style in which adolescent twins, brother and sister, deal with the aftermath of a car accident. The film is “about the family as an institution and the complex guilt that lies within its various facets,” Franco says.
“Three Goodbyes” (Isabelle Coixet, Cattleya, Rubido Produzioni, Bartleby Films, Buena Pinta Media, Vision Distribution, Beeteam Prods, Perdición Films, Tres Cuencos, Apaches Entertainment)
The latest work by the Spanish director who is attracting the most attention in Val.
“Adreed” is a film adaptation of a collection of short stories by Italian Michela Murgia, who died of cancer at the age of 51. Long-term partners Marta and Antonio suddenly break up after an argument. With flashbacks to their days together, the film foreshadows their final farewell, when Marta receives a devastating medical diagnosis. “On the flip side, this could be a cue for typical sick-of-the-week meddling, but Koiche maintains a light, melancholic tone and wisecracking tone,” says Variety.
