- Two feature films and five short films produced or shot in Castilla y León will be screened at the 69th SEMINCI.
- In addition, the two award-winning projects of the seventh edition of SEMINCI Factory-Valladolid – Film Commission will be premiered.
Valladolid, 26th September 2024. The selection of works from Castilla y León programmed for the 69th edition includes the feature films Pastoris, by Pablo Moreno, and Lo carga el diablo, by Guillermo Polo. The latter is produced by Clara Santaolaya, whose previous works as a short film director have already been screened in other editions of the festival. Polo has managed to bring together in Lo carga el diablo, an outstanding cast for his wild road story, from Pablo Molinero (La peste) to Itziar Castro, Antonia San Juan and Emilio Buale. Pablo Moreno‘s work stands out for being the first to be filmed in Palra d’El Rebollal, the language of some villages in the southwest of Salamanca.
Among the five short films included in the Shorts From Castile & Leon, there are two that draw from the real life or close environment of their directors: Dacio de las Heras offers glimpses of his time as a film student and, by extension, the lives of his friends in Lo que pasó entre medias, while Margo García dissects couple relationships in the framework of a theatre production in her short Panorama.
For her part, Marta Martín reflects on mourning in a fiction set in the town where she spent her holidays as a child, Arenillas. Grief also hovers over Alejandro Renedo‘s Solo los muertos se quedan. The selection of short films is completed by Semillas de Kivu, undoubtedly the crudest short film in the section. Directed by Néstor López and Carlos Valle, it deals with sexual violence as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
SEMINCI Factory
The two short films awarded in the previous SEMINCI Factory – Valladolid Film Commission short film production aid programme will also premiere at this year’s festival. An initiative set up by Valladolid City Council to boost the city’s audiovisual industry and support filmmakers and production companies by promoting the creation of short films using Valladolid as a film set. The winners of the 2023 call, subsidised with 9,000 euros each, are Bum Pum, a romantic drama with social undertones directed by Karu Borge, and Bicimaniacos, by Arturo Artal and Juan Carrascal-Ynigo.
Guillermo Polo. Spain
A surreal and crazy road movie about a frustrated writer who crosses Spain with the frozen corpse of his brother in the boot of his car. Its director, Guillermo Polo, co-founder with his brother of the production company Los Hermanos Polo Films, has been working since 2008 as a director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer, exploring expressive visual and sound narratives that create particular universes touched by black humour. Lo carga el diablo, his feature directorial debut, opened the Official Section of Cine Jove. Co-produced by Japonica Films, Volcano Films and Batiak Films, which is headed by Clara Santaolaya from Valladolid.
Pablo Moreno. Spain
Pablo Moreno (La sirvienta) from Salamanca has been working since 2006 as a producer, director and scriptwriter to create a small cultural industry in Ciudad Rodrigo ‘that contributes to the cultural and social growth of his community, where he directs the FICCI-ON film festival’. Pastoris, his eighth feature film, tells the intimate story of a transhumant shepherd in the devastated society following the Spanish War of Independence. It is produced by Stellarum Films.
Marta Martín. Spain
Shot in the town of Arenillas de Villadiego in Burgos, where the paternal grandmother of the Catalan director and screenwriter Marta Martín Bueno comes from, Arenillas is her first short film. It draws on personal experiences, dealing with themes such as death and memory, through the eyes of a little girl. The plot is based on the memories of her childhood summers, the anecdotes she heard and the feelings she experienced when she returned to the village after her father’s death. Arenillas is a story of mourning, interpreted by relatives and neighbours of the village, which transcends into a portrait of an emptied-out Spain and the people who keep it alive.
LO QUE PASÓ ENTRE MEDIAS (DE ESTUDIAR CINE)
Dacio de las Heras. Spain
Shot between 2019 and 2023 in Madrid and Prague, Lo que pasó entre medias (de estudiar cine) reflects the unadulterated experiences of Dacio de las Heras from Burgos and his friends during his time as a film student. There is no conflict resolution or tension, just dialogue, thoughts and everyday actions of people entering adulthood. Distributed by Moira Pictures.
Margo García. Spain
Director and screenwriter Margo García brings together in Panorama her two facets, cinematic and theatrical, by setting the plot within the framework of a stage production of El burlador de Sevilla. Minutes before the premiere, the main character learns that his partner and co-star has decided to change his life and move to New York, which leads to a discussion in which they both come clean. With her previous work, Madrid, mala vida, the filmmaker participated in the 2Cool4School programme at the Cannes Festival, promoted by the ICAA.
Néstor López, Carlos Valle. Spain
Documentary short film about the struggle of doctor Denis Mukwege and activist Nadia Murad in treating the physical and psychological wounds of women raped by guerrilla fighters as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Semillas de Kivu, directed by Néstor López and Carlos Valle, with script by Teresa Bellón and production direction by Paula Palacios, won the 10th Amnesty International-Abycine 2021 Short Film Project Competition. Both filmmakers have extensive experience as directors and producers of short films and advertising.
Alejandro Renedo. Spain
A filmmaker from Valladolid known for his award-winning short film De perfil, Alejandro Renedo has written, together with Eva Saiz, a road movie in which a mother and her daughter undertake a journey of a few hours to give their father, in an act of abandonment that becomes an act of love, the opportunity to commit suicide to escape from a degenerative disease, when euthanasia was not legal. A reflection on the importance of the other, even when absent, produced by Sincio de Pelis, Almaina Producciones and [pico tres cine].
Karu Borge
The Valladolid-born director and cinematographer Karu Borge, who debuted in 2021 with Que os jodan, demonstrates her desire to make a committed, critical and political film by setting the romantic drama Bum Pum in a protest that turns into street riots, during which love emerges among toppled containers as violence overshadows feelings. It is produced by Moraleja Films and Injúries i Calúmnies with the participation of La Terna Films.
Arturo Artal y Juan Carrascal-Ynigo
Partners since 2006, Arturo Artal and Juan Carrascal-Ynigo have produced together a feature-length documentary 15/03/09 La última ofensiva and more than ten short films. Before embarking on the development of their first feature-length fiction film, they shot Bicimaniacos, a story, echoing Misery, about a girl who takes care of a young streamer immobilised after a bicycle accident, all by herself.
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