- Ten works premiering in Spain as part of the Film Festival will compete for this 23rd edition’s Lady Harimaguadas, among other awards
- The Portuguese film Mãos no fogo and the French film Un Prince are the first two titles that will be shown on the big screen this Monday, April 22
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Sunday, April 21, 2024. The Official Feature Film Section of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival begins this Monday, April 22. A total of ten works —nine Spanish premieres and one European— are competing for this 23rd edition’s Lady Harimaguadas, among other awards. Mãos no fogo (Hands in the Fire) (Margarida Gil, 2024, 109 min.) will be the first feature to be shown at Cine Yelmo Las Arenas. This Portuguese film tells the story of a young film student who explores the mansions along the Douro River in order to work on her thesis about reality. Its first screening will be at 6:00 p.m. and will be presented by actress Carolina Campanela.
According to this edition’s catalog, among the ten selected titles, there is an extensive representation of family and couple chronicles —up to seven or eight movies—, which, arguably, constitutes an x-ray of contemporary cinema as much as a consequence of one of the traditional themes of classic auteur cinema, especially the European one.
During its first day, the Official Feature Film Section will also screen Un Prince (A Prince) (Pierre Creton, France, 2023, 82 min.), a French production in which “family is less a genetic inheritance than a kind of sexual and ecological affinity,” according to the section’s programmer Jaime Pena. The film delves into a young horticulture student’s discovery of his sexuality, which runs parallel to uncovering the secrets of botany.
It will be followed by Paradise (Prasanna Vithanage, Sri Lanka, India, 2023, 93 min.) and Ven a mi casa esta Navidad (Come to My Place This Christmas) (Sabrina Campos, Argentina, 2023, 83 min.) on Tuesday 23 at 6:00 and 8:30 p.m., respectively. Paradise shows both the analysis of an Indian tourist couple celebrating their wedding anniversary and the political background of Sri Lanka. Despite this celebration and with an economic crisis about to erupt in the country, the husband is solely focused on professional matters, while his wife shows concern about the guide’s questionable interpretation of the Ramayana.
Meanwhile, the Argentine feature Ven a mi casa esta Navidad tells the story of Inés, a forty-year-old single woman without children who spends Christmas with her brother’s in-laws, whom she hasn’t met before. During the encounter, she feels judged about her life choices and her place in the world as a woman.
The fifth title competing for this edition’s Golden Lady Harimaguada is Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski, Canada, 2024, 80 min.). The Canadian production answers to another paradigm, that of the marital crisis and the dissolution of the couple through a reunion between two college friends, the Matt and Mara of the title, with that inescapable dose of nostalgia about what could have been and was not. The audience will be able to see the outcome of this reunion next Wednesday, April 24 at 5:00 p.m.
That same evening, at 6:15 p.m., the big screen of Cine Yelmo Las Arenas will show a film that is not about a family or a couple, although it might be about a couple to be, to the extent that its starting point is a thirty-something-year-old woman in crisis meeting a deaf photographer who lives in the mountains. This is the Japanese film Rei (Tanaka Toshihiko, Japan, 2024, 189 min.), winner of the Best Film Award at the 2024 Rotterdam International Film Festival.
The documentary Through the Graves the Wind Is Blowing (Travis Wilkerson, USA, 2024, 84 min.) travels back to World War II to tell us about the past of the Croatian city of Split and its ties to Nazism. It also talks about the present through a mysterious detective whose main occupation is investigating unsolvable tourist crimes. This feature film, scheduled for Thursday 25 at 6 p.m., is a perfect metaphor for a country doomed to deal with its troubled history.
Another documentary with a theme that moves away from family portraits or relationships to focus on historical chronicles is Ještě nejsem, kým chci být (I’m Not Everything I Want to Be) (Klára Tasovská, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, 2024, 90 min.). It is a sort of autobiography by Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková that uses only her photographs and diary entries, but it is also a journey through the history of her country from 1968 onwards. This journey to freedom will arrive on Thursday 25 at 8:45 p.m.
The last two titles competing for this edition’s main awards are Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc (Cu Li Never Cries) (Phạm Ngọc Lân, Vietnam, Singapore, France, Philippines, Norway, 2024, 92 min. ), recognized already at the 74th Berlinale’s Panorama section, and Magyarázat mindenre (Explanation for Everything) (Gábor Reisz, Hungary, Slovakia, 2023, 127 min.), which received the Best Film Award at the 80th Venice International Film Festival’s Horizons section.
The family of Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc (Cu Li Never Cries) responds to different parameters. Its starting point is a homecoming, in this case of the absent aunt who causes an intergenerational catharsis when confronting her niece in the process of getting married. She fears she will repeat her own life mistakes. That’s why she decides to go on a journey to revisit her memories, invoking Vietnam’s rich past. This film reflection on changing times and the ghosts of the past will be screened on Friday 26 at 6:00 p.m.
The competition will finish at 8:15 p.m. with a film that confronts family relationships with the growing Hungarian ultranationalist wave; Magyarázat mindenre (Explanation for Everything) (Gábor Reisz, Hungary, Slovakia, 2023, 127 min.). Abel is a high school student from Budapest who is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka, making it difficult for him to focus on his final exams. At the same time, Janka has an unrequited love for her married history teacher Jakab –who had a confrontation with Abel’s conservative father. The polarized social tension boils over when Abel’s history graduation exam becomes a national scandal.
All these feature films comprising the Official Section will be presented at the movie theater Cine Yelmo Las Arenas by their directors, actors or producers.
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