The Seminci – Valladolid International Film Festival has just reasserted its firm commitment to independent arthouse cinema from Spain – which began last year with the arrival of new director José Luis Cienfuegos – at its 69th edition, which will unspool from 18-26 October. Across all of its sections, it will bring together the most comprehensive contingent of national productions in the festival’s history, with 18 titles that demonstrate their devotion to new thematic and stylistic propositions, according to the press release sent out by the gathering.

And so, in the Official Competition Section – which will be opened by Carlos Marques-Marcet and his musical They Will Be Dust [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Carlos Marqués-Marcet
scheda film], toplined by Ángela Molina – audiences will be able to see the eagerly awaited new film by the unclassifiable director Javier Rebollo: Close to the Sultan, starring Pilar López de Ayala, who is finally back on the big screen once again. Mar Coll will also be bringing along her drama Salve Maria [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Mar Coll
scheda film], with which she scooped a Special Mention at the recent Locarno Film Festival.

Standing out among the feature debuts set to get an airing at the Seminci are a batch of them by women hailing from other creative fields. In the official competition section, actress Marta Nieto – who won an award at Venice in 2019 for Madre [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
scheda film] – will world-premiere her first feature-length directorial outing, Becoming Ana [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Marta Nieto
scheda film], which she herself stars in alongside France’s Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. Meanwhile, her colleague Paz Vega will do likewise with Rita [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film], a film that was premiered at the most recent Locarno Film Festival and which will be shown out of competition in Valladolid. Another actress, Carolina África (Casi 40 [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: David Trueba
scheda film]), will follow suit with Verano en diciembre [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film], a big-screen adaptation of her stage play, starring Bárbara Lennie, Carmen Machi, Victoria Luengo and Irene Escolar, among others. Producer Elena Manrique will rock up with the acerbic comedy The Party’s Over [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Elena Manrique
scheda film] – in the official section, thus duking it out for the Golden Spike – after presenting it beforehand at Toronto.

In the always cutting-edge Punto de Encuentro (lit. “Meeting Point”) strand, we should point out Madrid’s Adrián Orr (Niñato [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film]) with his second feature, To Our Friends (premiered at Visions du Réel 2024). Featuring in Tiempo de Historia (lit. “Time of History”) will be the documentary Resistance Reels, helmed by Concha Barquero and Alejandro Alvarado, about Andalusian filmmaker Fernando Ruiz Vergara, who only directed one movie, Rocío; The Marseillaise of the Drunkards, the feature debut by Pablo Gil Rituerto; My Brother Ali [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by Paula Palacios (Drowning Letters [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film]); and Turismo de guerra, an inspection of historical memory courtesy of punk filmmaker Kikol Grau. Also in this sidebar, albeit out of competition, audiences will be able to see The Daughter of the Volcano by first-timer Jenifer de la Rosa and Waldo by Charlie Arnáiz and Alberto Ortega, a non-fiction title centring on famous composer Waldo de los Ríos.

Lastly, in the recently instigated, youthful Alquimias (lit. “Alchemies”) section, there will be a threefold Spanish presence: Cyborg Generation, the feature debut by Miguel Morillo, which shows the human-to-machine transition of a young 18-year-old musician; The Rim [+leggi anche:
recensione
scheda film] by Galicia’s Alberto Gracia, which previously took part in IFFR; and the dystopian The Human Hibernation [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Anna Cornudella
scheda film] by debutante Anna Cornudella, which enjoyed its world premiere in the Forum section of this year’s Berlinale. Plus, set to get an airing in the Memoria y Utopía section is Portabella Constellation, a documentary helmed by Italy’s Claudio Zulian that broaches the creative universe of the titular Catalonian filmmaker, which is due to be presented over the next few days at Venice.