➢ The non-competitive section will include some of the latest works by Hong Sang-soo, Jafar Panahi, Theo Montoya, María Aparicio, Joanna Hogg and Charlotte Le Bon
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Tuesday, March 7, 2023.- The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival will show some of the most recent works by Hong Sang-soo, Jafar Panahi, Theo Montoya, María Aparicio, Joanna Hogg and Charlotte Le Bon. Six films that connect the Gran-Canarian audience with works that travel the international festival circuit.
This small collection of titles provides the public with the opportunity to approach the mastery of great filmmakers through the viewing of their works on the big screen. Incidentally, such films come to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria preceded by awards and praiseworthy critiques after their screenings at festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Mar del Plata, Chicago or San Sebastian.
Thus, the Festival returns to Hong San-soo’s work and will offer Walk Up, a new example of the South Korean director’s precision and elegance. The film, included in San Sebastian’s Official Section, visits a building floor by floor, a journey undertaken by a filmmaker and his daughter that revisits and imagines much more than the rooms they observed. Sang-soo’s presence confirms the respect and admiration that the South Korean’s work inspires not only in the programming team of the Festival, but also in the audience that keeps attending the different screenings that have taken place over time since The Power of Kangwon Province was included in the Korean cinema cycle Seoul Express (2004).
Panorama will also offer the latest work by a key author of Iranian cinema, Jafar Panahi. No Bears, Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and selected for the last edition of Valladolid’s SEMINCI, masterfully captures the drama of a country devoid of freedom. Starting with the filmmaker’s, who, through meta-cinema, portrays his personal drama: Panahi has been imprisoned in the country and is currently serving a sentence for “collusion against national security and propaganda against the system”.
The Venice Film Festival held as well the premiere of The Eternal Daughter by British director Joanna Hogg. In its festival tour, the film appeared at the Seville European Film Festival and will be shown at the Gran Canaria event between April 14 and 22, just before its commercial release in theaters scheduled for the 28th of the same month. The film, starring Tilda Swinton as the mother and daughter of this hypnotic drama, faces both of them with enigmas and secrets of the past.
Preceded by several distinctions awarded by Mar del Plata International Film Festival’s Official Jury, two titles arrive in the capital of Gran Canaria: the Best Argentinean Film Award, About the Clouds (Sobre las nubes), by María Aparicio, a project selected in the 2021 MECAS’ Market of Almost-Finished Films section; and the Jury Honorable Mention recipient, Anhell69, by Colombian Theo Montoya.
Regarding the former, the Jury argued the award in this way: “For proposing an epic of the small, building a story about the way ordinary people do not give up in a crisis scenario. And for focusing on the small gestures of solidarity and empathy without avoiding risky narrative decisions”. And the fact is that the second feature film by the young director of Las calles (2016) is an ode to everyday life sprinkled with details and moments of intimacy.
On the other hand, Theo Montoya is a director with a promising career who has arrived in Mar del Plata after having lived the experience of being selected by Cannes to show his first short film (Son of Sodom, 2020). Halfway between fiction and non-fiction moves his Anhell69, a dark film that had its world premiere in Venice, where it obtained a Jury Special Mention within the Grand Prize Venice International Critics’ Week, and that also won the First Film Award at ZINEBI. This work, which according to what the filmmaker said in Mar del Plata, has neither borders nor genre, deserved its mention “for being a unique film in Colombian cinematography, portraying the tragic fate of a young community seen through the eyes of a promising young director,” and records the story of its past in violent and conservative Medellin, while a hearse drives through its streets.
Finally, Panorama will show the winner of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Golden Hugo: Falcon Lake, by Canadian director and actress Charlotte Le Bon. Nominated for the César in the Best First Film category and selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, and also for the Official Section at Valladolid, the film follows a young man living his first experiences of love and desire.
Panorama
The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg, USA, United Kingdom, 2022, 96 min.)
Sobre las nubes (About the Clouds) (María Aparicio, Argentina, 2022, 145 min.)
No Bears (Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2022, 107 min.)
Anhell69 (Theo Montoya, Colombia, Romania, France, Germany, 2022, 72 min.)
Walk Up (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2022, 97 min.)
Falcon Lake (Charlotte Le Bon, France, Canada, 2022, 100 min.)
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