Yesterday, Jaione Camborda made history at the Sant Sebastià Festival because she became the first Spanish director to win the Concha d'Or, a prize that Isabel Coixet and Isabel Herguera also opted for as the three representatives of Spanish cinema in the official section a competition of a 71st edition that concluded without a clear favorite after eight days of screenings in which the cinema shared the spotlight with the music – by C. Tangana or Santiago Auserón–, the series – by Los Javis or Berto Romero – or the heated controversy over Jordi Évole's documentary about Josu Ternera.
Camborda, born in Sant Sebastià in 1983, but established in Galicia for 15 years, achieved recognition in her own city and with a jury chaired by the French director Claire Denis with her second feature film, O corno, a ·a "demanding" film in which it tackles the drama of abortion in Franco's rural Galicia and which also made history at the closing ceremony because it is the first film shot in Galician to win the most important award in the Donostia competition. The Basque director is the fourth consecutive woman to win the Concha d'Or after the Georgian Dea Kulumbegashvili, in 2020; the Romanian Alina Grigore, the following year, and the Colombian Laura Mora, in 2022.
The director sets the story on the island of Arousa in 1971, where María, a shellfish worker 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 has no choice but to cross the border on one of the smuggling routes between Galicia and Portugal.
It is a very sensorial and organic work, gestated slowly for four years, where sorority reigns in difficult times and with which Camborda wanted to build bridges with the present and launch a reflection on the control towards the body of women that is still valid. The film, which reflects an era of repression, prohibition and non-explicit persecution of women, has also been in the news because it has caused some fainting during its screenings at the festival due to an immersive opening sequence, shot realistically, in which a woman prepares to give birth at home.
In her speech of thanks, the director remembered those who financed the film, since "it is not easy to finance an author's project", and she remembered the "references, those who paved the way". "Diversity enriches us and makes us more free", she said, and then shared the award with "all the filmmakers who have to come and will be references for the next ones".
The Concha de Plata for best director was shared by Taiwanese filmmakers Peng Tzu-Hui and Ping-Wen Wang for their feature film Un viaje en primavera, which deals with the issue of how to deal with grief in old age. Both, very excited, said that this film, which brings together "the efforts of many people", has been made "for those who love cinema". And they dedicated the trophy to their family and Taiwan to raise them. The special prize of the jury wanted to value Kalak, by the Swedish screenwriter and director Isabella Eklöf, a hard and uncomfortable story about child abuse in the family environment shot in Greenland and whose title refers to those who come from outside. The film is based on the autobiographical novel by Kim Leine, who worked as the screenwriter of the film, and tells the story of a man who runs away from himself after being sexually assaulted by his father. The film was also deserving of the Jury Award for Best Cinematography for Nadim Carlsen.
The jury prize for the best screenplay went to Argentines María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat for Puan, a philosophical comedy they also direct and which stars Leonardo Sbaraglia and Marcelo Subiotto. The latter, absent from the gala because he is filming, won the Concha de Plata for the best main performance ex aequo with Tatsuya Fuji, protagonist of the Japanese family drama Great absence, screened yesterday. Fuji became one of the most unexpected protagonists of a rather boring evening with a long parliament in which he kept saying the word arigato - 'thank you' in Japanese - when finishing his sentences.
And the Lebanese actor Hovik Keuchkerian went on stage at the Kursaal to collect from Vicky Luengo the award for the best cast performance for his role in Un amor, by Isabel Coixet, in which he plays Andreas, a big and lonely guy who makes a strange proposal to a woman with few financial resources who has just settled in the town where Laia Costa gives life. "I am very envious of not speaking Basque today", he pointed out in a speech full of humor that brought laughter from those present. "I consider that cinema is something very particular for each one, but I know what a team is and they are all in this Concha. And any team needs a piece of coach to take refuge in and that coach is Isabel Coixet. I would like your energy! You seem like an absolute hottie", he added smiling.
Coixet's film, based on Sara Mesa's novel, received the Feroz Zinemaldia award given by the members of the Association of Cinematographic Informants of Spain (AICE) in an event in which its president, María Guerra, denounced the "precarity of the journalistic profession".
The City of Donostia audience award, which is voted by viewers of the Pearls section – a selection of the best films from other festivals such as Cannes or Venice – of the San Sebastian Film Festival, went to La sociedad de la nieve , by Juan Antonio Bayona. "It is a pleasure to receive this award for an audience as special as that of Sant Sebastià", said the Barcelona director happily, who will donate the prize money to the foundation of the Biblioteca Els Nostres Fills, founded by mothers who lost their his children in the Andes plane crash 50 years ago.
The Spanish-Argentine co-production La estrella azul, about a famous Spanish rocker, won the Spanish cooperation prize, while the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera prize recognized the work of the circular film El auge del humano 3, by Eduardo Williams.
