Congolese actress Véronique Tshanda Beya presents Félicité, by Alain Gomis, a film competing in the Official Section

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  • Argentinean producer Ivan Eibuszyc presents the competing film Kékszakállú, first incursion in fiction by Argentinean director Gastón Solnicki, thanks to which he was awarded the FIPRESCI at Venice
  • Félicité, the second competing title of the day, won the Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlinale

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Wednesday, April 5, 2017. Kékszakállú, a summer portrayal of several women inspired by Béla Bartók’s opera, Bluebeard’s Castle, and Félicité, the story of a café singer in Kinsasa that already won the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin, share the official section’s billboard the sixth day of the 17th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. Both films compete for the Cajamar Foundation Golden Lady Harimaguada.

The Argentinean production will start Wednesday’s showings, having its press screening at 10 a.m. at the Monopol’s screen 2. At 11:30 a.m., its producer, Iván Eibuszyc, will present Kékszakállú (Gastón Solnicki, Argentina, 2016, 72 min.) to the media and, at 6 p.m., will do so to the audience at the Pérez Galdós Theater.

Argentinean filmmaker Gastón Solnicki won the FIPRESCI Award at Venice thanks to this tale of several young women, a choir film lost into a culture in an economic and spiritual crisis. Kékszakállú portrays a world full of ambiguities and responsibilities that can undermine the souls of these characters as easily as it can grant them self-fulfillment.

Kékszakállú, Solnicki’s third feature film, is his first incursion in fiction after the documentaries Sudën and Papirosen (Best Argentinean Film at 2012’s Bafici); the movie premiered internationally at the Venice Festival, and has been, too, at the Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro, Mar del Plata and Rotterdam festivals, among others.

The second film of the day, Félicité (Alain Gomis, France, Germany, Belgium, Lebanon, Senegal, 2017, 123 min.) will be presented in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by its star actress, Véronique Tshanda Beya. After the press screening at noon, the actress will present it to the media at 4:30 p.m. at the Pérez Galdós Theater; and at 8:15 p.m., at the Pérez Galdós Theater, too, she will present it to the audience in a screening supported by Casa Africa.

The French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis focuses his fourth feature film, Félicité -title based on the name of its protagonist- on the story of a singer who works in a café in Kinsasa. Her 14-year-old son’s accident forces her to undertake a frantic race through the Congolese capital’s streets. But pain also allows her to meet the man with whom she begins a love story.

The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival’s official selection is supported by Spain’s Public Agency for Cultural Action, through the Program for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture, which reflects in its titles the thorough global search carried out by the festival.

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