José Luis Cuerda to open Valladolid Film Festival with All Is Silence

José Luis Cuerda’s All Is Silence has been announced as the opening film of the 57th Valladolid Film Festival, which runs Oct 20-27. A Spanish veteran, Luis Cuerda has known international success with films like Butterfly’s Tongue and has won two Goyas for the script of Butterfly’s Tongue and 2008’s The Blind Sunflowers.

All Is Silence tells the story of a group of friends in Galicia who have their lives turned upside down by drug trafficking. Quim Gutiérrez (Cousinhood), Miguel Angel Silvestre (Winning Streak), Spanish TV star Ceiclia Freijeiro lead the cast. As with Butterfly’s Tongue, the film is based in a novel by popular writer Manuel Rivas.

Also in official selection, Pere Vilà, after his success in Karlovy Vary, will introduce La Lapidació de Sant Esteve, a French-language film about the last days of an old man.

Director Peris Romano (8 Dates) will also screen his new short film En Plan Romántico, with the full line up of the official selection to be announced in the coming days.

Documentaries feature heavily in the festival’s Tiempo de Historia section, which will showcase new films from well known directors. Chapero Jackson (winner of the European Film Award for best short with Lightborne and maker of film Verbo) will screen Mundos Sutiles, a film about the 100 years of Antonio Machado’s book of poetry Castilian Plains.

A Spanish film legend, Basilio Martín Patino (Nueve Cartas de Berta, Caudillo) is back behind the camera ten years after his last film with Libre Te Quiero, centred around the protests in Madrid Puerta del Sol in 2011.

A production of Almodovar’s El Deseo, The Labèque Way, by Félix Cábez (Buñuel in Hollywood), focusses on the internationally renowned pianists Katia and Marie Labèque.

David Trueba (Salamina Soldiers) screens Positive Generation, about Zimbabwean musicians who fight against AIDS and stars Spanish music stars including Alejandro Sanz, Antonio Carmona, Juan Luis Guerra and Andrés Calamaro. La Luz Oculta, by Roberto Lozano, documents misery in three places of the world: Guinea, Central African Republic and Argentina.

Mabel Lozano’s Madre portrays different women’s experiences of motherhood, while Juan Marsé Habla de Juan Marsé, by Augusto M. Torres, looks at the work of well known novelist Juan Marsé ahead of his 80th birthday. Finally, Austrian-Spanish co-production Separated, by Natalie Johanna Halla, travels to Palestine, Western Sahara and Slovakia to show the struggle of those who are isolated by politic conflicts.

Adolfo Dufour, winner of Tiempo de Historia in 2009 with Septiembre del 75, will screen Nosotros centred on the fate of a group of workers of the bankrupted Sintel company. Iñaki Arteta (Trece Entre Mil, El Infierno Vasco) will screen Testigo Involuntario. Nicolás Redondo Urbieta, about the eponymous syndicalist and his influence in Basque history.

Two short films will also screen out of competition: Luis Miñarro (Family Strip) presents 101, about the work of Manoel de Oliveira, and Ensayo de Una Revolución, by Antonio Lebajo and Pedro Sara, portrays last year’s protests all over Spain.