27/08/2024 - Regulars of other festivals, such as Carlos Marqués-Marcet, Mar Coll, Javier Rebollo, Alberto Gracia and Adrián Orr, will present their new works alongside a handful of first-timers

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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Marqués-Marcet
film profile], 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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mar Coll
film profile], 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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
film profile] – will world-premiere her first feature-length directorial outing, Becoming Ana [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marta Nieto
film profile], which she herself stars in alongside France’s Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. Meanwhile, her colleague Paz Vega will do likewise with Rita [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], 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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: David Trueba
film profile]), will follow suit with Verano en diciembre [+see also:
trailer
film profile], 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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elena Manrique
film profile] – 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 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) 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 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Paula Palacios (Drowning Letters [+see also:
trailer
film profile]); 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 [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Galicia’s Alberto Gracia, which previously took part in IFFR; and the dystopian The Human Hibernation [+see also:
film review
interview: Anna Cornudella
film profile] 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.

(Translated from Spanish)