- Patricia Ferreira, Fernando Méndez-Leite and Mohammad Rasoulof, will receive the Honorary Spikes at the 69th SEMINCI. The latter will come to Valladolid to collect his 2018 award on October 23.
- Constellations, a new initiative to show the latest works by great filmmakers who have attended previous editions of the festival.
- Among the special screenings in Valladolid, the films The Seed of the Sacred Fig, by Mohammed Rasoulof, and Emilia Pérez, by Jacques Audiard, will be shown, as well as the latest works by Costa-Gavras and Mike Leigh.
- SEMINCI premieres the soundtrack composed by creator Javier Vielba
Valladolid, 9 October 2024. Just one year away from celebrating its 70th anniversary, the upcoming edition of SEMINCI, from 18 to 26 October, will offer a challenging and ambitious programme that will provide a broad overview of leading auteur cinema through a curated selection of more than 200 titles, including feature films and short films, establishing a dialogue between the different sections in and out of competition. The Mayor of Valladolid, Jesús Julio Carnero, and the director of SEMINCI, José Luis Cienfuegos, presented the 69th edition of the Festival today at the City Hall, as the tickets will go on sale on 11 October.
“The 69th edition of the SEMINCI is more ambitious than ever this year. It will start one day earlier than usual, so Valladolid will experience a nine-day film festival, where more than 200 films will be screened, attracting both the people of Valladolid and visitors from all over the country who come to enjoy this great event”, said Jesús Julio Carnero.
“This festival presents a very complete and heterogeneous programme, for all kinds of audiences. SEMINCI satisfies all kinds of spectators, from the youngest to family audiences, from the elderly to film fans in general. Every film buff can choose from the programme what interests them most and create their own festival. In addition, the films programmed generate conversation and open dialogue on social and human issues, thus allowing cinema to leave the theatres and invade the streets. Like the cultural and recreational activities open to the public that allow everyone to participate in SEMINCI, a festival for all the people of Valladolid, which every year consolidates itself as an essential event for film lovers from all over Spain”, added the Mayor of Valladolid.
The Festival director highlighted: “This 69th edition will bring to Valladolid two hundred films selected during the year by the programming team, after months of viewing, debate and work. Many of these films will have their Spanish premiere thanks to the support of Spanish independent distributors, who carry out titanic efforts that are always worthy of vindication, as well as international agents who, ever demanding, trust in the criteria, approach and value of a Festival like ours: a place where films are widely represented by their creators and are not programmed on the basis of previous awards, in spite of having received recognition and prizes after the selection”.
“Stubborn as we are, we maintain our determination to make today’s SEMINCI a place where film history is something vital, in continuous questioning, demolition and reconstruction and, above all, a source of much learning”, added José Luis Cienfuegos about this edition of the Festival, organised by the Valladolid City Council with the institutional sponsorship of the Junta de Castilla y León, the Instituto de Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) of the Ministry of Culture and the Diputación de Valladolid (Provincial Council of Valladolid). SEMINCI also has the support of Ribera de Duero, Castilla y León Tierra de Sabor and Renault Group as gold sponsors, as well as Unicaja, RTVE and El Norte de Castilla as silver sponsors.
Also sponsoring this year’s edition are Recoletas Salud, University of Valladolid, FUNDOS, Alhambra, BCD Travel, Gadis, Gaza, Renfe and DAMA. The Festival would not be possible without the collaboration of MERCI Valladolid, ADICINE, Valladolid City of Film, PICE, Goethe Institut, Instituto Cervantes, Unifrance, Foro Cultural de Austria, ECAM Industria, Patio Herreriano, Círculo de Recreo de Valladolid, Hostelería de Valladolid, Asociación de Confiteros de Valladolid, Fecosva, CIMA, El Globo Rojo and Movus.
Honorary Spikes
In 2024, SEMINCI will award two honorary spikes to renowned figures in Spanish filmmaking. One posthumously, to the screenwriter and film and television director, Patricia Ferreira, Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts 2024, and director of, among others, Sé quien eres, El alquimista impaciente, Los niños salvajes and Thi Mai, rumbo a Vietnam. Alongside the founding member of the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media (CIMA), the Festival recognises the work of the current director of the Spanish Film Academy, Fernando Méndez-Leite. Former Director General of Film (ICAA) and founder of the Madrid Film School (ECAM), he worked as a critic, author, director of cultural programmes and director of fiction and documentaries.
In addition, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof (There Is No Evil, Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival) will collect the Honorary Spike that SEMINCI awarded him in 2018 and which he was unable to collect because he was under house arrest, imposed by the Iranian regime. After being sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging for crimes against national security in 2024, he decided to leave Iran. His latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree, winner of the Special Jury and Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, will be shown in Valladolid.
Constellations
Among the new additions to the programme presented today in Valladolid, Constellations was unveiled, a new section that will be incorporated into this year’s SEMINCI. This non-competitive section further enriches the quality of the international titles screened at the Festival by offering a space for filmmakers who presented their films in previous editions and who have new works this year. From Aaron Schimberg‘s A Different Man, for which Sebastian Stan won the Silver Bear for Best Actor, to Andrea Arnold‘s Bird; as well as the latest films by Costa-Gavras, Last Breath, a moving film about a dignified death, and Mike Leigh‘s Hard Truths, in which he returns to work with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, one of the stars of Secrets and Lies, the film with which he won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 1996.
Two of this year’s best-received films complete this section: Mohammed Rasoulof‘s The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree and Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Perez. The latter, which has been described as a narcomusical, is the French candidate for the Oscar and won the Jury Prize and Best Female Performance for its leading cast (Spanish trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz, Selena Gomez, and Zoe Saldaña) at the last Cannes Film Festival.
Special screenings
The film programme of the 69th edition brings viewers closer to proposals beyond the range of the competitive, retrospective and out-of-competition sections. The special screenings include four titles aimed especially at families, as well as eagerly awaited Spanish and international productions. In addition to those already announced, such as The Wailing, by Pedro Martín-Calero from Valladolid, recent winner of the Silver Shell for Best Director, there is also the short documentary Siempre+Positivo, by Nacho Solana, starring Barça’s Dutch coach, Louis Van Gaal, and his experience with cancer.
On Friday 25, Antón Álvarez, better known as C. Tangana, will come to Valladolid to present his debut as a filmmaker to the public. Very well received by critics, La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés follows the flamenco musician with his camera and provides a complex radiography of his tragic family history. A musical documentary that reveals itself as an emotive portrait of an artist that touches on the intimate vein, as well as issues of identity, interpersonal relationships and racism towards the gypsy community.
SEMINCI will host the world premiere of Colita sin filtros, a work by Hortensia Vélez and Elisabeth Anglarill from RTVE’s Imprescindibles series. The film revolves around the genesis of the exhibition Antifémina, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, which was the last exhibition in which the photographer Colita, who died in 2023 before its opening, took part. The exhibition was based on a book, published in 1977 by the writer and politician Maria Aurèlia Capmany, with archive images of Colita. This book was withdrawn from the market by the publishing house itself, which considered its content subversive, a vision of women far removed from the patriarchal stereotypes denounced by its authors.
In the Family Cinema section, SEMINCI has selected four works that cover different styles of animation, which will be shown in original version with subtitles: Into the Wonderwoods, by Alexis Ducord and Vicent Paronnaud; Dalia and the Red Book, by David Bisbano; 4 Days Before Christmas, by Steve Majaury and Andrea Sebastiá, and The Glassworker, by Usman Riaz.
Also special will be the concert screening of Alfred Hitchcock‘s silent film Blackmail. Following in the footsteps of previous editions, thanks to the collaboration of the Castilla y León Regional Government, this film will be revived on Friday 25 October at the Miguel Delibes Cultural Centre, almost one hundred years after its premiere. The American conductor Timothy Brock, a specialist in live performances of silent films, will conduct the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra (OSCyL), based on the score created in 2008 by the British composer Neil Brand for this film, a score that leans towards the tonality of Bernard Herrmann, the regular composer of Hitchcock’s sound stage, and Miklos Rozsa.
Other genres
In the 69th edition of SEMINCI, fantastic and horror films have a place in the programme thanks to the collaboration of the Pucela Fantástica Festival (PUFA). On the night of Friday, October 25th, fans of this genre have an appointment to enjoy two titles never before shown in Spanish cinemas, Mads, by David Moreau, and Azrael, by E. L. Katz, and then share their impressions and their passion for this type of cinema.
Gastronomy, an essential aspect of Valladolid’s attractions, will be reflected in the SEMINCI through the two screenings programmed in the Cine Gourmet section: El mago del vino, by David Moncasi and The Most Remote Restaurant in the World, by Ole Juncker. The first film focuses on the efforts of the oenologist Raúl Pérez to produce a wine from a plot of land in El Bierzo (León) that would achieve 100 points in the prestigious Parker Guide. The second proposal, from Denmark, is similar to the previous one in that it also reflects the heroic effort of the chefs of a two-Michelin-starred restaurant to open an exclusive dining room in a remote village of 50 inhabitants in Greenland. Likewise, in recognition of the good relationship between SEMINCI, gastronomy and wine, the Festival has decided to award an Honorary Spike to the Priorat oenologist and winemaker Álvaro Palacios.
The programme is completed by a selection of five short films shot in Castilla y León as part of the Quercus programme. This is an initiative to promote the audiovisual sector produced in this region, subsidised by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport of the Regional Government of Castilla y León. The five selected short films, which are going to be screened on Monday 21st October, are Ático AB, by Elena González-Vallinas; Un día perfecto, by Sergio Muñoz Cano; Ciclos, by David Orea Arribas; La culpable, by María Guerra, and Meta, by Sara Sanz.
SEMINCI premieres its theme song
Music has a privileged place at SEMINCI, but this year it has gone a step further: the creator Javier Vielba, vocalist and guitarist of the Valladolid band Arizona Baby, has composed the Festival’s theme song, which will accompany each of the screenings and activities at the festival.
Coinciding with Seminci’s 69th birthday, the musical compilers Maribel&Sebastian have prepared an exquisite ambience to listen to in the cinemas before the lights go down. Songs by The Blaze, Metronomy and Broadcast that appeal to love, desire and affection from a different perspective, like the films in the Meeting Point section. A list in which classics such as Nina Simone, Nico and Françoise Hardy are paired, as in the Official Section, with the heterodoxy and new sonic outlooks of Adios Amores, Carla Morrison and Billie Eilish. And, as in the Cycles and Focuses, small tributes to albums that are celebrating their 25th anniversary, such as the 25th anniversary of 69 Love Songs, by The Magnetic Fields. 69 songs to listen to and then enjoy the films.
The culmination of this musical-visual interaction is the video-concert ‘Domar la luz’ on Tuesday 22 October at the Broadway Cinemas. A live dialogue between three musicians, a sonidist and a VJ, with music by Oihan. This is the personal project of Guillermo Aragón, drummer in the bands Arizona Baby and Cosmic Birds, and lead singer and composer in Tuxedo.
In order to give visibility to the musical talent existing in Valladolid and in Castilla y León, the 69th edition of SEMINCI counts on the collaboration of bands and musicians who have supported the audiovisual materials disseminated to programme our line-up and activities: Aníbal, Brezmes, Cabeza de Gallo, Campo Grande, Chacho Cósmico, Delameseta, Dulzaro, El Nido, Euphoria & Carlos Escobedo, Filter Fauna, Free City, Jose Carreño, Las Bulsara, Los Recuerdos, Manusser, Maref, Onira, Rocío Torío, Sharon Bates, The Levitants and UnderWallace.
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