The Colombian Los reyes del mundo, directed by Laura Mora, has been the great winner at the closing gala of the San Sebastian Festival after winning the Golden Shell of this 70th edition. It is the first time in the history of the Donostia-San Sebastian festival that a film from Colombia is crowned in a very varied list of winners that has had a large female and youth presence.
The film by Mora, a brilliantly talented director who became known in these parts in 2017 with her first feature film Matar a Jesús, winner of the New Directors Award at Zinemaldia, was nominated as one of the critics' favorites since its screening official last Wednesday. Filmed with exquisite sensitivity and amid the overwhelming beauty of the Colombian jungle, The Kings of the World recounts the dangerous journey, from Medellín to Nechí (Antioquia), undertaken by five teenage friends who are alone in the world in search of the promised land.
On their journey, Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano will run into the worst and the best of human beings, as reflected in the tender scene in which they are embraced by some older prostitutes. They dream of leading a new life on the land that Rá inherited from her grandmother and that has been returned to her by the government, but they only receive contempt and humiliation along the way. Mora composes, between realism and fable, a moving story full of violence and shot in a poetic key, which is connected to the Colombian political scene.
All this under the cloak of a beautiful friendship and the fervent desire of these young people, played by non-professional actors, that men fall asleep so they can live in peace. Mora, the third woman to win the Golden Shell in a row, has confessed that this film has been "very difficult to make" and has considered the award "an accolade" that comes after four especially complicated months in which raised the possibility of giving up making movies.
Very moved, the director trusts that "the film will serve to establish a dialogue and have the possibility of thinking about a more just world". The film, soon to be distributed in Spain by Bteam pictures, has also won the Feroz Zinemaldia award granted by the Spanish Association of Cinematographic Reporters.
The Silver Shell for Best Director went to Japanese Genki Kawamura, creator of A Hundred Flowers, a poetic portrait of Alzheimer's based on his grandmother's story and starring veteran Mieko Harada. "It's my first film and I didn't think I was going to get an award. I would like to thank all the actors who have participated in the project and dedicate the award to my grandmother." For its part, the best script went to the Chinese director, screenwriter and producer Wang Chao for the story of overcoming set in the Cultural Revolution that he narrates in the conventional A woman, based on the autobiographical novel 'Dream', by the writer Zhang XiuZhen.
And the American Marian Mathias came out on stage at the Kursaal Palace to thank the special Jury Prize for her feature debut Runner, a drama plagued by melancholy that relies on the beauty of pictorial planes to explain the loneliness of characters lost in deep America. "It is strange and often overwhelming to enter the world of cinema. Thanks to the festival for making room for this film. We have to move on," she assured when collecting the award from Rosa Montero.
Of the four Spanish films in competition, only La maternal, in which Pilar Palomero explores motherhood in adolescence, had a place in the list of winners with the Silver Shell for best leading performance for its very young actress Carla Quílez, a Barcelona student from third of the ESO who shared the exaequo recognition with the young Frenchman Paul Kircher, son in real life of the actress Irène Jacob and alter ego of Christophe Honoré in Le lycéen, a drama about loneliness and mourning that drinks from the time in the one in which the filmmaker himself lost his father as a kid.
And for another very young actress, Renata Lerman, she received an arguable award as best supporting actor for an unassuming role as a rebellious teenager in El suplente, directed by her father, the Argentinian Diego Lerman, in a story that revolves around a literature teacher at a school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires who tries to help a student persecuted by a group of drug traffickers. "I'm so excited because I thought she couldn't get cast," she commented.
The British Florence Pugh, a great favorite for best actor for The Wonder, left empty, as did Sebastián Lelio's film, which had many options in the category of best photography. Instead, it was taken by Pornomelancolía, by the Argentine Manuel Abramovich, in a totally incomprehensible decision by the members of the jury chaired by the also Argentine producer Matías Mosteirín. Nor was there an option for Ulrich Seidl's controversial Sparta, which critics liked quite a bit with a devastating portrait of a pedophile who fights against his sexual impulses.
Neither Wild Sunflowers, by Jaime Rosales, nor The Rite of Spring, by Fernando Franco, could seduce the jury. Of course, Suro, by debutant Mikel Gurrea, came out with the Fipresci award and the Irizar award for Basque cinema for the story of a couple in decomposition. Argentina 1985, by Santiago Miter and starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani, won the audience award for best film thanks to the courageous reconstruction of Juicio de las Juntas, the trial of the nine soldiers who led the dictatorship between 1976 and 1983 and that led to the conviction of Videla and those responsible for the greatest genocide in the history of Argentina. "This award fills us with pride and gives us the opportunity to amplify values that are more relevant than ever at this time," said Chino Darín.
As bestas, the rural thriller by Rodrigo Sorogoyen that will hit Spanish cinemas on November 11, won the audience award for best European film. "It's incredible. It has been a dream to project the film to the public. I hope that people continue going to the cinema," said the director optimistically. The Costa Rican I have electric dreams, by debutant Valentina Maurel, was chosen best film in the Horizontes Latinos section, and Fifi's teenage summer love awarded the New Directors award to the pair of French filmmakers Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan.
Isabel Coixet for The Yellow Roof, a documentary that uncovers the sexual abuse committed by a teacher on his female students for 20 years in the Lleida Theater Classroom, won the TVE Otra Mirada award, which highlights the point of view of the women. "It's fantastic to come to San Sebastian out of competition and get a prize. Thank you for the response from the public for that 'yes, I believe you,'" said the Catalan director. The Zabaltegi-Tabakalera award went to Godland, by the Danish director Hlynur Palmason, "for his meticulousness and commitment to narration," according to the jury.
