The Seminci usually programs a good hundred, some of the best films that have already passed through the big festivals, but have not yet been released commercially. This year has not been an exception and the viewers who have stopped by for the Valladolid film week have been able to enjoy quality titles. Pending the winners, which the jury will announce on Saturday, these are the five essential films in the official section.
Cao is called the fourth brother. He is Iron. The previous ones with Gold, Silver and Bronze and poor Iron has always been the outcast of his family, who decides to marry him to Ma, a young woman who suffers from health problems and who has lived almost like an animal in her sister-in-law's stable her. 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 comes, 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 by the Chinese director has been one of the most applauded in this edition of the Valladolid Festival and is one of the main candidates to win the Golden Spike.
And if Return to Dust is moving, Nothing, another favorite movie, is disturbing. Danish director Trine Piil delves into the concerns of adolescence through a story that begins when the young Pierre Anthon decides that life has no meaning and that people are nothing more than mere copies of each other. The boy is so annoyed with that idea that he climbs a tree and there is no way to get down.
His classmates from the eighth grade class, between 13 and 14 years old, want to support Pierre Anthon and show him that there are many things worth living for. They gather their most precious belongings - a few books, a fishing rod - to give to him. But soon they realize that these junk have no real value and choose to offer what really matters. They start with Ágnes's green sandals and then continue with other increasingly valuable garments. Emotionally valuable. physically valuable. Until reaching a limit situation.
Park Chan-wook won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for Decision to Leave, which is now competing in the official section of the Seminci and has received good applause at the contest. Tang Wei is a detective investigating the death of a mountain climber.
It could have been an accident or a suicide. But it is also possible that his beautiful young wife killed him. The policeman follows that last lead, but he can't help but be attracted to the suspect. And the viewer can't help but feel captured by Park Chan-wook's camera footage and his haunting tale of love and mystery.
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 at the bridge club, because although he is now an unemployed cook, in Bulgaria, Vasil was an engineer and a great bridge and chess player.
Avelina Prat makes her debut as a director with this film that moves between comedy, drama and cinema of social denunciation. The film recounts the relationship between these two very different men, but also portrays the difficulties of people who are forced to change countries and does so with a radiant Valencia as a backdrop.
Padraic and Colm are lifelong friends. Since time immemorial, they meet every day in the pub and spend the afternoon between pints of beer. But one midday, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) refuses to accompany Padraic (Colin Farrell) to the pub. He has decided to end their long and great friendship. He doesn't explain. He acknowledges that his former friend has not offended or annoyed him and, upon Padraic's insistence, he confesses that he simply finds him boring.
Martín McDonagh directs The Banshees of Inisherin, a very black comedy set on a small Irish island off the coast of Galway in 1923. Ireland is immersed in a civil war, but the inhabitants of the island do not care, they live in peace and isolated dedicated to the care of their animals. Until the conflict breaks out between the old friends that leads to terrible events. The film won the award for best screenplay and the Coppa Volpi for best male performance for Colin Farrell at the Venice Film Festival.
