A parade marked by masks and the safety distance opens the 65 Seminci

• Valladolid dresses up to host the green carpet ceremony  of the 65th International Film Festival
• Valladolid’s Film Week  will be screening 150 films, including features and shorts, between today and next Sunday, while welcoming  actors, producers and filmmakers  from different parts of the world

24/10/2020.- The prelude to Seminci’s opening gala was filled with well-known faces from the film world:  directors, producers and screenwriters contributing their support to this 65th edition of the  Valladolid Film Festival.  The green carpet was walked by many masked faces who respected interpersonal distances and greeted people at a safe range. Even so, the magic that has accompanied the Festival’s opening for so long  returned in the year celebrating its 65th  anniversary.

Fest director Javier Angulo was the first to tread the green carpet of a film festival whose main private sponsor continues to be Unicaja Banco. “We miss the public’s warmth on a day like this,  but rest assured:  there is nothing as safe as a movie theater,” said Angulo, who performed as host  together with Valladolid’s mayor Óscar Puente, and Ana Redondo, the local councillor for culture.

The opening gala presenters  Alex O’Dogherty and Eva Marciel posed together for the media, whom they thanked for their presence given  the current circumstances. Javier Gutiérrez, the “godfather” or special host  of the 65th edition of Seminci, addressed journalists covering the event and recommended the film It Snows in Benidorm, which would screen right after the  opening gala.

In fact, Isabel Coixet returned to Seminci in order to present her latest film and to collect one of the edition’s Spikes of Honour. The well-known film director did not come alone. Cast members Sarita Choudhury, Pedro Casablanc and Edgar Vittorino and producer Agustín Almodovar accompanied  Isabel Coixet, who recently received the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s National Film Award.  It was Coixet  who raised the curtain of this year’s  Seminci with the world premiere of her film It Snows in Benidorm.

Other  green carpet paraders were Natalia de Molina and Ruth Díaz, who will be respectively presenting The Girls and A Normal World  in the Valladolid’s Spanish Cinema section. They were closely followed by Irene Visedo, a popular Spanish actress as a result of her role in the hugely successful TV series Cuéntame como pasó. Brays Efe and Greta Fernández, who were entrusted with presenting the Honorary Spike to Isabel Coixet, did not miss the green carpet ritual either.

Representing the Official Section’s entry Puppy Love, the film’s director Michael Maxxis and the New York actress Paz de la Huerta, who plays the lead role in the movie, joined today’s  green carpet parade as well.

The Festival’s International Jury,  formed by Peter Beale, Alicia Luna, Antonio Pérez, Stéphane Sorlat and Emma Suárez, arrived on the red carpet together and posed for the media while thanking Valladolid’s weather  for not soaking Seminci’s  green carpet.