Six works-in-progress from Spain are being presented to the international industry at Locarno Film Festival
Spain is the country of focus in Locarno Film Festival’s First Look section, with six works-in-progress ready to illustrate the vitality and creativity of the Spanish industry.
The features selected will be presented to international sales agents, buyers, festival programmers and post-production support funds.
The spotlight on Spanish talent and projects arrives thanks to a partnership with Spanish film body the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) and ICEX Spain Trade & Investment.
The selection includes first features alongside the work of seasoned directors. There is a significant presence of women producers and filmmakers, in line with the new talents who have reinvigorated the Spanish industry. A range of genres and styles probe the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction.
A village in La Mancha is the setting of Enrique Buleo’s debut feature Still Life With Ghosts (Bodegón Con Fantasmas). “Buleo was inspired to weave five different stories that mix local La Mancha colour and way of life, the fantastic as well as a Kaurismaki-like dry humour,” explains producer Alejandra Mora of Quatre Films.
Quatre is producing with Cuidado con el Perro and Sideral Cinema, which will also handle the distribution in Spain, and Serbia’s This and That Productions.
Margarita Ledo Andión’s non-fiction piece I’d Rather Be Condemned (Prefiro Condenarme) tells the story of a woman in Galicia who was tried in court for adultery in 1972 during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. The filmmaker tells the story of the woman who stood up for her rights in a hostile environment, merging her testimony with archive footage.
“Being selected as part of First Look in Locarno offers the chance to complete post-production and spotlight the film internationally,” says producer Carmen Ciller from Nós Productora.
Personal journeys
Another work-in-progress being showcased is Downriver, A Tiger (Rio Abajo, Un Tigre) by first-time feature director Víctor Diago and produced by Barcelona-based Boogaloo Films. Shooting took place in Glasgow, Scotland where the filmmaker’s twin sister lives.
“It’s a fable of a young woman lost in a city alien to her,” says Diago. “She embarks on a personal journey when she recalls a romantic encounter with an Indian migrant who also moved to Glasgow in search of a different future. It’s a sentimental portrait of my sister, of Glasgow and a fleeting love story.”
Also filmed outside Spain is the creative documentary Dream Of Another Summer, the first film by Irene Bartolomé. It is produced by Pere Marzo at Barcelona-based Colibrí Studio as a co-production with The Attic Productions in Lebanon and Bartolomé’s I.B Films in Spain.
Dream Of Another Summer is a docu-fiction, using images of Beirut but with a fictionalised voiceover. It follows “a woman in crisis in a city in crisis”, according to Bartolomé. “It is a film about a couple, but instead of a conventional couple, here we have a woman and a city.” Influenced by Chantal Akerman’s News From Home and José Luis Guerín’s In The City Of Sylvia, Bartolomé started filming in 2021, exploring Beirut’s landscape and physical scars, including the aftermath of the port explosion that shook the city in the summer of 2020.
Also in Locarno is documentary filmmaker Ariadna Seuba with her second feature Mums (Mares). Described as “a romantic tragicomedy about the consequences of postponing motherhood”, the film follows the journey of the writer/director and her partner Anna when they decide to have a child and begin the process of assisted reproduction.
Produced by Polar Star Films and Intactes Films in co-production with 3Cat, Mums shot for four years, covering more than 500 hours of medical procedures and conversations with family and friends, shot mostly by Seuba herself.
“Locarno is the cherry on the cake,” says the filmmaker. “Such a happy occasion after four years of filming and working on the documentary, and dealing with the real-life emotional rollercoaster, hormones included.”
Marc Ortiz’s debut feature The Lookout (L’Aguait) is also inspired by real-life historical events in Spain. The drama recounts the life of an intersex child born in 1917, registered at birth as a girl but who grew up to identify as a man. Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, he was known as Durruti when he joined the anti-Franco guerrillas and as La Pastora by the regime’s propaganda.
“The Lookout deals with topics such as identity that are very contemporary,” says producer Paloma Mora of TV ON Producciones. The project is a co-production between TV ON, Admirable Films and Lamalanga Produccions Audiovisuals.
First Look takes place from August 9-11 at Locarno Film Festival.
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