MOSTRA DE VALENCIA HAS COMPLETED ITS COMPETITION SECTION WITH FIVE PREMIERES IN SPAIN

The 35th edition of Mostra de València-Cinema del Mediterrani, held at Cines Babel and La Filmoteca between 22nd October and 1st November, has finalised its list of films that will be in with the chance to win the gold, silver and bronze palm awards this year. The festival has also broken its own entry record this year after receiving more than 750 films.

Among the confirmed films, all premiering in Spain, we can highlight the Italian film “Favolacce” by the brothers Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo that won the best screenplay at Berlinale and offers a particularly acid look at parent-child relationships in middle-class suburban families. 

There is also “Kala Azar”, the debut feature by the Greek artist Janis Rafa, winning awards in Rotterdam and Hong Kong. This is a stunning film that explores the fine line that separates life and death, the connections between human beings and animals and the fragility of love.

 

“Willow” is the latest film by Milcho Manchevski, who burst onto the international film scene with “Before the Rain” which was nominated for an Oscar. On this occasion he uses three interconnected stories starring women to portray a deep reflection on controlling their bodies, tradition, loyalty, upbringing and adoption.

Women are also the main characters of “Luxor” and “Tereza37”. “Luxor” is an Egyptian production with British participation directed by Zeina Durra. The film had its world premiere at Sundance and stars Andrea Riseborough  (“Mandy”, “Birdman”) who plays an archaeologist seduced by the mysteries of the monumental city on the banks of the Nile.

As for “Tereza37”, this is a Croatian film directed by Danilo Serbedzija, and in which the actress Lana Baric powerfully stands out, not only for her convincing portrayal of the main character, a woman who has suffered several miscarriages, but because she is also the author of the script.

These five films are added to what was previously announced: the Kosovar-Albanian film “Zana” (Antoneta Kastrati), the Algerian film “Paysages d’automne” (Merzak Allouache), the Palestinian film “Between Heaven and Earth” (Najwa Najjar), the Syrian film “The End Will be Spectacular”  (Ersin Çelik), “La viajante” (Miguel A. Mejías) and the Portuguese film “Mosquito” (João Nuno Pinto). Eduardo Guillot, programme manager, says “this is the best selection of films in the competition since the Town Hall decided to bring the festival back in 2018, which has been the result of the gradual strengthening of the Mostra Festival all over the world”.

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As well as the competition, the Informative Section has also been completed with two other premiere films in Spain. On the one hand, we have “The Women in Block J”, the second piece by Mohamed Nadif, who enters the walls of a female psychiatric institution in his country to tell a story of sorority and camaraderie between three patients and one of the doctors from the institution.  

On the other hand, the Serbian film “My Morning Laughter”, by Marko Djordjevic, is a tragicomedy that has just won the Best Film Award in Kiev and is about a grown man who has lived under the wings of his parents for too long and embarrassingly faces losing his virginity. Natural light and sounds, fixed shots and small spaces convey the uneasiness of the main character through the images.

In addition, and also included in the cycle “Las batallas de Argelia”, the festival recovers two valuable recent films for the Valencian public that have been on screen very briefly: The award-winning “Abou Leila”, which was the international revelation of the director Amin Sidi-Boumédiène, and “Papicha, sueños de libertad”, by the director Mounia Meddour, winner of two César Awards in France.

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