02/03/2011

For its 14th edition, the Malaga Spanish Film Festival (March 26-April 2) has adopted a decidedly more low-key approach. These are hard times for the Malaga event (its budget has been cut by 20%, to €2.1m), so the organisers have decided to focus their attention on new talents, as shown by the fact that six of the 11 films selected in competition are debut works and the rest second or third features.

There will be few big names this year at a festival which, despite everything, continues to be the most important Spanish film event. It will open with Tom Fernández’s What’s A Bear For? [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Malaga fest regular Javier Cámara, while the closing title will be Maxi Valero’s El Hombre de las Mariposas [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“The Butterfly Man”).

The other films set to vie for the Golden Biznaga for Best Film are Carles Torras’s Open 24h; Max Lemcke’s Five Square Meters [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Max Lemcke
film profile]; Ramón Térmens’s Catalunya Über Alles [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Gustavo Balza’s Doentes; Friends [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Borja Mansó and Marcos Cabota; Frank Spano’s One Hour Less; Enrique Otero’s Crebinsky [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Alberto Gorritiberea’s Arriya (La Piedra); and David Marqués’s En Fuera de Juego [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“Offside”).

Several of these films were shot in one of Spain’s co-official languages: Catalan, Galician and Basque. This trend, borne out by the recent Goya success of Black Bread [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (shot in Catalan), has been highlighted by the festival’s selection committee, who said that "Spanish cinema is increasingly made up of films from the autonomous regions. This is partly due to the financial support they receive from the different autonomous regional governments".

The Zonazine section traditionally focuses on the most innovative works. This year, six features will screen in competition: David Blanco’s The Shadow of the Sun; Martín Sastre’s Miss Tacuarembó; Juan Oscar Rojo’s Brutal Box; José Enrique March’s El Artificio (“Artifice”); Toni Ruiz, Juanlu Ruiz and Israel Mondéjar’s Buenos Aires Cuatropuntocinco; and Esteban and José Miguel Ibarretxe’s An Almost Perfect World.

Some of the festival’s main attractions will screen out of competition, including the documentaries Morente by Emilio Ruiz Barrachina and The Never-ending Night by Isaki Lacuesta, and Oriol Capel’s comedy No Lo Llames Amor, Llámalo X [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“Don’t Call It Love, Call It X”).

(Translated from Spanish)