Valladolid goes European

by Vitor Pinto

21/10/2005 - A selection gathering the latest films by some of the most prestigious art-house European directors is on the menu of the International Film Week of Valladolid, which celebrates this year its 50th anniversary. Under the direction of Juan Carlos Frugone, who replaces Fernando Lara, the most prominent film event in Valladolid screens from today till October 29th, 20 feature length films in the official selection, 15 of which compete for the Espiga de Oro (50.000€).

The opening and closing ceremonies have French accent, thanks to the screening of Costa-Gavras's Le Couperet [trailer] (Le Couperet) de Costa-Gavras and Christian Carion's Merry Christmas [trailer, film focus], screened out of competition. Not in the running for the major prize are also The Child [trailer, film focus] by the Dardenne brothers (Film Focus); Iberia, the new musical by Carlos Saura (read the article), and the Golden Lion from the last Venetian Mostra, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. This list goes on, with other famous author's names still to add such as Lars Von Trier (Manderlay [trailer]), Michael Haneke (Hidden [trailer, film focus] - see Film Focus), François Ozon (Time to leave [trailer]). These three titles, all of them shown at the last Cannes Film Festival, will compete against Dominique Deruddere's Die Bluthochzeit (Germany / Belgium), Krzysztof Krause's Mój Nikifor (Polond), Hiner Saleem's Kilomètre Zéro (France, Kurdistan, Finland), Bent Hamer's Factotum [trailer] (USA, Norway), Matias Bize's En la cama (Chile, Germany); besides four Spanish coproductions, Marcos Carnevale's Elsa y Fred (Spain, Argentina), Julia Solomonoff's Hermanas (Argentina, Brazil, Spain), Daniel Cebrián's Segundo Asalto and Santiago Tabernero's Vida y Color (Spain); and de Asian titles, Yoji Yamada's The Hidden Sword (Kakushi ken- Oni no tsume - Japan), Hao Ning's Ping Pong Mongol (Lü cao di - China) and Deepa Mehta's Water (India, Canada).

The programme also includes the sidebar sections "Punto de Encuentro" (14 feature films and 15 short films in competition), "Tempo de Historia" (19 documentaries), "50 Años Amando el Cine" (amazing selection of incontornable titles from the last 5 decades in Film History), a selection of films produced by the School of Cinematography and Visual Arts from the University of Léon and, finally, the section "Spanish Cinema 2004 / 2005", an occasion to (re)discover some of the most impressive Spanish films from the last two years such as Alex de la Iglesia's Crimen Ferpecto, Miguel Courtois's The Wolf, Tapas by Juan Cruz & José Corbacho, Semen, a love story by Daniela Ferjerman & Inés Paris (see Film Focus), and Montxo Armendáriz's Obaba, which might represent Spain in the running for the Academy Award for the best foreign film.