What makes SEMINCI, the Valladolid International Film Week, unique, says festival director José Luis Cienfuegos, is its focus on Spain as a market by bringing together Spanish and international independent films with the country’s distributors and cinema owners.
“Spanish distributors can test how their most recent acquisitions work,” says Cienfuegos, now in his second year at the festival, after a period at the Seville International Film Festival.
Cienfuegos is determined to help bring a new generation cinemagoers to theatres - without losing the older audience.
“Independent cinema’s natural audience is currently of a certain age,” he says. “We programme for this audience of course but we are also opening ourselves up to more challenging work by inviting filmmakers like Athina Rachel Tsangari [Harvest], Alain Guiraudie [Misericordia], Ariane Labed [September Says] or a filmmaker who. has never come to Valladolid before like Miguel Gomes [Grand Tour].
The jury of the international competition awards its prizes, the €70,000 Golden Spike and €25,000 Silver Spike, to the Spanish distributors, rather than the filmmakers, of the winning films.
“Boosting the market in Spain for independent cinema is one of our main goals,” says Cienfuegos. “This year most of the films selected in competition have closed distribution deals in the months coming up to the festival since we picked them up.”
A total of 210 films are screening at Valladolid this year, including 22 in competition and four out of competition. “It’s the largest official selection since 1988,” says Cienfuegos. “It includes Elena Manrique’s first feature as director The Party’s Over, about a wealthy woman who discovers an immigrant hiding in the tool shed of her villa. It has a delicious and wicked sense of humour.”
Cienfuegos emphasises the importance of the current generation of Spanish producers. “They are changing the landscape,” he says, pointing to Sandra Hermida, producer of The Party’s Over and 2023’s Society Of The Snow, and María Zamora, who has two films in competition Becoming Ana and Salve Maria.
Industry
Valladolid’s Independent Cinema Market, known as the MERCI, will present 22 features to approximately 140 distributors, exhibitors and buyers from platforms and broadcasters, including Movistar Plus+, Paramount, Max and RTVE.
“Exhibitors get to know the films earlier which helps to identify the target audience,” says Olimpia Pont Cháfer, who coordinates both MERCI and ADICINE.
This year will be the market’s fourth edition, the second to be held in Valladolid, following two editions in Seville where Cienfuegos was the director of the Andalusian festival.
Organised jointly by the Valladolid International Film Week and ADICINE (the Association of Independent Spanish Distributors), the MERCI will take place from October 23-25.
Further industry activities will include a discussion between the Spanish producers Spa Marisa Fernández Armenteros (Buenapinta Media), Maria Luisa Gutiérrez (Bowfinger Internacional Pictures), Sara de la Fuente (Mammut Films) and Silvia Fuentes (Sétima), on the current state of the Spanish film industry.
“We want to be more and more useful to the industry,” says Cinefuegos. We are a key meeting point between sales agents and Spanish distributors. Of course there is San Sebastián, but Valladolid is very well-placed in the calendar towards the European Awards and the Goya awards.”
The Valladolid International Film Week runs from October 18-26.
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