The curtain will rise on the 40th edition of the Mostra de València – Cinema del Mediterrani, running from 23 October-2 November, with The Dinner, a dramedy set in post-war Spain by veteran director Manuel Gómez Pereira. The festival’s Official Selection will also host 13 features, offering a varied mosaic of titles from across the Mediterranean basin.

Two of them hail from Spain: the documentary Mariscal. La alegría de vivir, directed by journalist and filmmaker Laura Grande, which examines the country’s last few decades while tracing the life of the celebrated titular artist; and Pizza fritta, the debut feature by Domingo de Luis, a Spanish-Italian co-production that straddles documentary and fiction and was shot in Naples. Hybrid propositions are a hallmark of this section, as evidenced by Orfeo [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Virgilio Villoresi
scheda film] by Italian filmmaker Virgilio Villoresi - presented at Venice - which blends live action and animation to tell the story of a pianist who falls in love with a mysterious woman who vanishes into a supernatural realm.

Other films in the Official Competition include First Person Plural [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Sandro Aguilar
scheda film] by Portugal’s Sandro Aguilar, which bowed at IFFR and follows a couple’s tropical escape and its unsettling turn of events; Broken Vein by Greek director Yannis Economides, about a businessman trying to stop his home from falling into the clutches of a loan shark; and, from France, A Second Life [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Laurent Slama, about a young woman with a hearing impairment caught between depression and the pressure of managing short-term rentals in Paris, and Pieces of a Foreign Life by Gaya Jiji, about a woman fleeing war-torn Syria to seek asylum in Bordeaux.

Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa’s Aisha Can't Fly Away [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Morad Mostafa
scheda film], which played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, follows a Sudanese caregiver in the heart of Cairo, while Promised Sky [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Erige Sehiri
scheda film] by Erige Sehiri, which opened the same section at the French festival, reflects on racism and the integration challenges faced by sub-Saharan women in Tunisia. From Turkey come Cinema Jazireh [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Gözde Kural
scheda film] by Gözde Kural (in competition at Karlovy Vary), The Flying Meatball Maker by Rezan Yeşilbaş and Mom’s Pale Flowers by Ali Cabbar. The line-up is rounded off by the documentary 50 Meters by Yomna Khattab.

Elsewhere, the festival’s highest distinction, the Honorary Palm, will go to two key figures in Spanish film production: Fernando Bovaira (an Oscar winner with The Sea Inside [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]) and Sol Carnicero (whose most acclaimed credits include Bicycles Are for the Summer, The National Shotgun and The Cuenca Crime). In addition, the Focus section will be dedicated to Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti, offering audiences the chance to rediscover his work through the most extensive retrospective organised in Spain to date.

Lastly, the 40th-anniversary strand will present a selection of 20 Golden Palm winners, while new sections will broaden the festival’s horizons: Finestra is a showcase for contemporary Valencian cinema, and Xaloc replaces the traditional informative section in order to spotlight more fringe films, such as Balearic [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ion de Sosa
scheda film] by Ion de Sosa and Nena by Gabi Ochoa.