From San Sebastian
Women have been stomping on the international festival circuit. Last February, Spanish Carla Simón won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale with her social drama alcarras. Just two weeks ago, the American Laura Poitras won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for her documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, centered on the life of photographer Nan Goldin. Y This Saturday the Colombian director Laura Mora won the Golden Shell at the 70th anniversary edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival for her second feature film, The Kings of the worldthe story of five street kids from Medellín who embark on a journey without certainties in search of a better future.
This is the third consecutive year that a film directed by a woman has won the highest award in San Sebastián following the triumphs of Beginningof the Georgian Dea Kulumbegashvili, in 2020, y Blue Moonby Romanian Alina Grigore, in 2021. And It is the first time in seven decades of the festival’s history that the Golden Shell awards a Colombian production. The 41-year-old director dedicated the award “to all those who think that a fairer future is possible” and to the San Sebastian festival, where she began her career with the 2017 Youth Award for her first film kill jesus.
At the same time, Argentine cinema garnered two awards from the official list of winners. The recognition to best photography went to Manuel Abramovich, as well as cameraman also director of Pornomelancholia, portrait of a Mexican “sex influencer” who is all the rage on social networks but cannot get rid of the sadness of his life. “I think that this award can help give visibility to issues that are relevant and urgent to me, such as sex work, HIV, minorities and sexual diversities and everything that is out of the norm,” said Abramovich from the stage of the enormous Kursaal hall in San Sebastián. “And I also want to think that this award can help imagine other possible ways of making movies,” he added.
For its part, teenager Renata Lerman won the award for best supporting performance for Alternatedirected by his father Diego Lerman, the story of a university professor (by Juan Minujín) who takes a Literature substitution at a difficult secondary school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, besieged by poverty and drugs. And now out of official competition, the film Argentina, 1985which participated in the Perlas section, dedicated to films that have previously passed through other festivals, won the coveted Audience Awardwhich ensures distribution in theaters in Spain.
Representing the film by Santiago Mitre, starring Ricardo Darín as prosecutor Julio César Strassera, “Chino” Darín, one of the co-producers of the project, took the stage at the Kursaal, highlighting “how important it is for us that a film regarding democracy receives the audience award”. And he emphasized: “even more so these days, when hate speech does not respect the democracy that we knew how to build.”
“As Argentina, I want to say: above all, democracy!”, reaffirmed the director Albertina Carri, which succeeded him in the use of the word, when as president of the jury of the Zabaltegi section (which in Basque means open area), dedicated to the most radical films of the festival, he had to announce the prize of his section. Which was for what can be considered one of the best films of the year, Godlanddel islandés Hlynur Pálmason, already commented a few days ago on these same pages.
As head of the jury, Carri pointed out “the meticulousness and commitment” of the director with the tremendous journey that begins its protagonist, a Danish priest who at the end of the 19th century is sent by the authorities of the Lutheran church to preach his faith in a land untamed and almost deserted, as Iceland was then, in the hands of Denmark. “Basically, it was the movie that moved us the most of the many we saw,” Carri summed up.
In other official sections, they were awarded Fifi (France), debut film co-directed by Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan, which won the New Directors Award, where another debut, Pokhar ke dunu para / On Either Sides of The Pond (India), by Parth Saurabh, received a special mention. I have electric dreams (Costa Rica), Valentina Maurel’s feature debut, won the Horizontes Award following collecting the distinctions for best director, best actress and best actor at the Locarno Festival.
The Nest Award, dedicated to short films and which included Argentine director Andres Di Tella as president of the juryfell on the short film blue mountain (Colombia), by Sofía Salinas and Juan David Bohórquez, film students at the Central University of Colombia.
The great absentee from the awards of this 70th anniversary edition of the San Sebastian Festival was Spanish cinema, which had a massive presence in all the sections, with four titles in the absence of one in the official competition, and which was left almost empty-handed. The exception was the award for best leading role for Carla Quílez, who at 15 years of age bears all the responsibility for the motherlythe film by Pilar Palomero from Zaragoza dedicated to teenage mothers.
