Jaione Camborda has made history at the San Sebastián Festival by becoming the first Spanish director to win the Golden Shell, an award for which Isabel Coixet and Isabel Herguera were also competing as the three representatives of Spanish cinema in the official competition section of a 71st edition that has concluded after eight days of screenings in which cinema has shared the focus with music - by C. Tangana or Santiago Auserón -, series - by Los Javis or Berto Romero - or the heated controversy over the documentary by Jordi Évole on Josu Ternera.
Camborda, born in San Sebastián but living in Galicia for 15 years, has achieved recognition in her own city with her second feature film, O corno, a "demanding" film in which she addresses the drama of abortion in Franco's rural Galicia and which has also made history by being the first film shot in Galician to win the most important award at the San Sebastian competition, awarded by a jury chaired by French filmmaker Claire Denis. The Basque director is the fourth consecutive woman to win the Golden Shell after the Georgian Dea Kulumbegashvili, the Romanian Alina Grigore and the Colombian Laura Mora.
The director sets the story on the Illa de Arousa in 1971, where María, a shellfish farmer who lives alone, helps women in childbirth. But clandestinely, she is also known for providing her services to other women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and she has no choice but to cross the border along one of the smuggling routes between Galicia and Portugal. It is a very sensorial and organic work, conceived over a slow fire for four years, where sorority reigns in difficult times and with which Camborda has wanted to build bridges with the present, launching a reflection on the control of women's bodies. which is still valid.
The film, which reflects a time of repression, prohibition and persecution of women in a non-explicit way, has also made headlines for causing some fainting due to an immersive opening sequence, shot realistically, in which a woman prepares to give to light in his house. In her thank-you speech, the director remembered those who financed the film since “it is not easy to finance an author's project” and the “references, those who paved the way.” “Diversity enriches us and makes us freer,” she stated, and then shared the award with “all those filmmakers who are yet to come and will be references for the following ones.”
The winners, quite distributed, have also awarded the Silver Shell for best direction to two women, the Taiwanese filmmakers Peng Tzu-Hui and Ping-Wen Wang for their debut film A Journey in Spring, which deals with the theme of how to face grief in old age. And the jury's special prize was intended to recognize the work of Kalak, by the Swedish screenwriter and director Isabella Eklöf, a harsh story about child abuse filmed in Greenland whose title refers to those who come from abroad and which has also won the award for the best photography for Nadim Carlsen.
The jury prize for best script went to Argentines María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat for Puan, a philosophical comedy that they also directed and which stars Leonardo Sbaraglia and Marcelo Subiotto. The latter, absent from the closing gala because he was filming, won the Silver Shell for best lead performance ex aequo with Tatsuya Fuji, star of the Japanese family drama Great Absence, screened yesterday.
And the Lebanese actor Hovik Keuchkerian took to the Kursaal stage to collect the award for best supporting performance from Vicky Luengo for his role in Un amor, by Isabel Coixet, in which he plays Andreas, a big, lonely guy. who makes a strange proposal to a woman with few financial resources who has just settled in the town played by Laia Costa. "I'm very envious that I don't speak Basque today," she said in a speech full of humor that made those present laugh. "I consider that cinema is something very particular for each one, but I know what a team is and they are all in this Shell. And every team needs a coach to take refuge in and that coach is Isabel Coixet. I would like to your energy. You seem like an absolute crack to me," he added.
Coixet's film, based on the novel by Sara Mesa, was recognized this afternoon with the Feroz Zinemaldia prize awarded by the members of the Association of Cinematographic Informants of Spain (AICE) in an event in which its president, María Guerra, has denounced the "precariousness of the journalistic profession."
The City of Donostia Audience Award, voted for by viewers of the Pearls section - a selection of the best films from other festivals such as Cannes or Venice - of the San Sebastián Film Festival, went to The Snow Society, by Juan Antonio Bayona. "It is a pleasure to receive this award for an audience as special as that of San Sebastián," said the Barcelona director, who will donate the financial endowment of the trophy to the 'our children' library foundation founded by mothers who lost their children. in the plane crash in the Andes 50 years ago.
The Spanish-Argentine co-production La Estrella Azul, about a famous Spanish rocker, has won the Spanish cooperation award. The Zabaltegi-Tabakalera award has recognized the circular film The Rise of the Human 3, by Eduardo Williams.
The Horizontes Latinos award went to El Castillo, a work halfway between fiction and documentary directed by the Argentine Martin Benchimol. For the Australian Kitty Green, the award was another look from RTVE for her thriller The Royal Hotel and Isabel Herguera was thrilled to have in her hands the Irizar award for Basque cinema for the beautiful animation of The Sultan's Dream, inspired by the book by Begum Rokeya.
