It is common for the decisions of the juries at film festivals to be controversial. But this year, the one at Seminci, chaired by Kate O'Toole, has hit the nail on the head with an impeccable record of awards. The moving Return to dust by Chinese director Li Ruijun has won the Golden Spike in a competition that has shone for the quality of the films in competition.
Cao is called the fourth brother. He is Iron. The previous ones with Gold, Silver and Bronze. Poor Iron has always been the outcast of his family, who decides to marry him off to Ma, a young woman with health problems who has lived almost like an animal in her sister-in-law's stable. Li Ruijun recounts in Return to dust the coexistence and the affection that arises between the couple and that runs parallel to the cycle of the earth. Ma helps Cao with the planting, raising the chicks, and building his new adobe house.
When the harvest arrives, the chicks are already hens and the house is habitable, both take care of each other, love each other and can no longer live without each other. Return to Dust is moving and beautiful on the inside, for what it tells, and on the outside, for its sharp and colorful images. The film, which also competed in the official section of the last Berlinale, has convinced the jury and has been one of the most applauded by the public.
An audience that has handed over its award to the emotional and essential The Quiet Girl, by Irish director Colm Bairéad, which has also won the Silver Spike. The quiet girl was the only movie that could overshadow Return to dust. It is a film, spoken in Gaelic, as slow and silent as the girl with the title that tells of a girl's need to have parents and the need of parents to have a daughter in a calm and balanced tone that, however, reaches to strike the most sensitive fiber of the viewer.
Little Cáit lives somewhat isolated in the bosom of a large family where nobody pays much attention to her. Her mother, pregnant again, sends her one summer to live with a cousin and her husband to get some work off her. The marriage, which has no children, establishes an increasingly intimate relationship with Cáit.
The Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski says that he wanted to break with the traditional narration, because it bored him, and also with the actors, because they argued too much. So he has shot a movie, Eo, starring a donkey. Eo already won the Jury Prize at the last Cannes festival and has now won the award for best direction at Seminci.
It was more difficult for the jury to award the prize for best male performance, because although it was clear that the award should go to Vasil, by Avelina Prat, its two protagonists, Karra Elejalde and Ivan Barnev, are fantastic. The solution has been to grant them ex aequo recognition.
Alfredo (Karra Elejalde) is a serious, lonely, not very affectionate retiree who plays traditional mail chess and whose social life is limited to lunch on Wednesdays with his daughter. A friend asks her to take Vasil (Ivan Barnev), a Bulgarian who has settled in Valencia and has nowhere to sleep, into her house for a few days. She has met Vasil in the bridge club, because although he is now an unemployed cook, in Bulgaria, Vasil was an engineer and a great bridge and chess player. Vasil, Part's debut behind the camera, will hit Spanish screens next week.
The Seminci has recognized the Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal with the award for best female performance for her role in The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani. Azabal plays a sick woman who has shared her life with a man who loves her and has made her happy, despite being gay, something she hides because homosexuality is punishable in Morocco where the couple lives and runs a sewing business.
Three other notable films have also received awards. Decision to leave, by the Korean Park Chan-wook, has been recognized for the best montage. Passengers of the Night, by French director Mikhaël Hers, has won the award for best screenplay. The eight mountains, by Felix Van Groeningen, has won the award for best photography and Alma viva, by the Portuguese Cristèle Alves Meira, with the award for best new director.
