Julie Delpy’s Meet The Barbarians will open the 21st edition of the Seville European Film Festival on November 8. The Spanish festival turns the spotlight on European films during this year’s awards season.
Meet The Barbarians is a satire about the arrival of a group of refugees in a village in Brittany.
The official selection includes 19 titles in competition for its top award: the Golden Giraldillo, named after the statue that crowns Sevilla’s Cathedral, La Giralda.
The prize comes with €40,000 for the Spanish distributor of the winning film or €20,000 for the company that submitted the film to the festival and a further €15,000 to the company that goes on to acquire the film for theatrical distribution in Spain.
Two films are making their world premieres in competition: Dismantling An Elephant, is a drama starring Emma Suárez, Natalia de Molina and Darío Grandinetti. It is the debut feature of Aitor Echeverría, a Screen International Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2023; and Raqqa: Spy Vs Spy, an espionage thriller by seasoned Spanish director-producer Gerardo Herrero, that stars Álvaro Morte, known for Money Heist.
Further Spanish productions in the official selection but out of competition are Laura Hojman’s documentary A Free Man, about the Andalusian writer Agustín Gómez Arcos; and, for the first time at the festival, a TV series: El Circo De Los Muchachos, a documentary by Elías León Siminiani that will screen on Prime Video. It is about an educational project for youngsters from poor backgrounds hat was started by a priest in 1950s Spain and went on to create an internationally renowned circus.
Beyond Spain, a substantial number of European films are also screening at the festival, strategically placed in the calendar to boost their theatrical release as they vie for a spot in the in the international awards conversation. They include Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With the Needle, Leonardo Van Dijl’s Julie Keeps Quiet, Rusudan Glurjidze’s The Antique and Sandhya Suri Santosh, all chosen as their respective country’s submission to the international Oscar category.
Further awards hopefuls include Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, Mohammad Rasoulof ‘s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Spain’s Oscar entry Saturn Return by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, are screening in the European Film Academy (EFA) section of the festival.
One of the innovations for 2024 is the Puerta America award (literally, America’s gateway), that is structured with a cash prize in the same way as the main competition prize. It is for both the films submitted to the Oscars and those screening in the EFA section.
A second innovation is the Rampa competition for first and second-features. This will complement the returning New Waves, Andalusian Panorama, and Alumbramiento, for films in search of distribution in Spain, sections.
After premiering Modi, Three Days On The Wing Of Madness, at the San Sebastián Film Festival, actor-director Johnny Depp will also be attending Seville. Further international attendees will include UK producer David Puttnam, who is serving on the official jury with Jeremy Irons, filmmaker Mounia Meddour, exhibitor Eva Rekettyei, and film journalist and artistic director of the Rome Film Festival Paola Malanga.
Seville 2024: Main competition
A Missing Part (France-Belgium)
Dir: Guillaume Senez
Alpha (Netherlands-Switzerland-Slovenia)
Dir: Jan Willem van Ewijk
And Their Children After Them (France)
Dir: Ludovic Boukherma, Zoran Boukherma
Banzo (Portugal-France-Netherlands)
Dir: Margarida Cardoso
Comme Le Feu (Canada-France)
Dir: Philippe Lesage
Dismantling An Elephant (Spain)
Dir: Aitor Echevarría
Ernest Cole: Lost And Found (France)
Dir: Raoul Peck
Fario (France)
Dir: Lucie Prost
Flow (Lithuania-France-Belgium)
Dir. Gints Zilbalodis
Julie Keeps Quiet (Belgium-Sweden)
Dir: Leonardo van Dijl
Paul And Paulette Take A Bath (UK)
Dir: Jethro Massey
Raqqa: Spy Vs Spy (Spain-Morocco)
Dir: Gerardo Herrero
Santosh (France-UK-Germany)
Dir: Sandhya Suri
The Antique (Georgia-Finland-Switzerland-Germany)
Dir: Rusudan Glurijdze
The Girl With The Needle (Denmark-Poland-Sweden)
Dir: Magnus von Horn
The Sparrow In The Chimney (Switzerland)
Dir: Ramon Zürcher
This Life Of Mine (France)
Dir: Sophie Fillières
Transamazonia (France-Germany-Switzerland-Taiwan-Brazil)
Dir: Pia Marais
Quiet Life (France-Germany-Sweden-Greece-Estonia-Finland)
Dir: Alexandros Avranas
Out of competition
Meet The Barbarians (France)
Dir: Julie Delpy
Un Hombre Libre (Spain)
Dir: Laura Hojman
El Circo De Io Muchachos (Spain)
Dir: Elías León Siminiani
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