Teatro Calderón’s  Hall of Mirrors becomes the stage for the closing gala’s green carpet ritual

10/31 / 2020.- The traditional green carpet ritual that precedes the Festival’s closing gala had an unusual feature in this 65th edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival: the event took place in the Hall of Mirrors of the Festival’s main venue, Teatro Calderón.   What did  not change with regard to previous editions was the fact that the  first green-carpet walkers were  the mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente, and the Councilor for Culture of Valladolid’s local government  Ana Redondo, together with the director of Seminci, Javier Angulo. Behind them, the journalist Elena Sánchez, the actress Eva Marciel and the showman Álex O’Dogherty, the closing gala presenters, blew kisses  at  the photographers and, through their snapshots, at  the Festival fans, who could to follow the event via streaming on Canal Seminci.

Next came the jurors’ parade, which began with the Rainbow Spike jury members: Yolanda Rodríguez, José Ramón Rubín and Inés Modrón. The Time of History jury, in turn,  was represented by two of its members, Mar Felices and Sally Gutiérrez, who were followed along  the red carpet by Enrique Gabriel, a Meeting Point juror, and Nadia Hotait and Ana Amigo, from  the DOC. España jury.  Carlos de Hita, David González Sanz and José Manuel Rodríguez Fernández, entrusted with awarding the Festival’s Green Spike, were closely followed by Pilar García Elegido and Elisabeth Larena, from the Castile & León in Short  jury, who also  walked the carpet surrounded by camera flashes. The French producer and distributor Stéphane Sorlat was unable to stay for the closing gala, but the other members of the International Jury (Peter Beale, Emma Suárez, Alicia Luna and Antonio Pérez) ushered  the winners along the green carpet while saying goodbye to the Valladolid Festival: “See you next year!”

Other guests who posed for the graphic media were Alejandro Renedo, awarded in the Castile&León For Short sidebar; Fernando Palomares, the winner of the  Golden Spike and the EFA Award for Best European Short Film for El mártir; and Óscar Bernàcer, who has garnered this year’s award in the Spanish Short Film Night programme and was accompanied by theatre director and film actor Jonathan D. Mellor. “The star today is him,” said producer Jordi Oliva about Aurel when asked why he did not walk the carpet with him. The cartoonist has won the Ribera del Duero Award for Best Director with  his film Josep, a prize shared ex aequo with Ivan Ostrochovský for Servants.

Alejandro Telémaco Talaf, the recipient of the jury’s special mention in Meeting Point for Lonely Rock, also walked through  the Hall of Mirrors of Teatro Calderón, and so did the actress Nerea Barros and the war correspondent, writer and filmmaker Hernán Zin: the co-producers 57 días , the winning short film in the Festival’s documentary section Time of History. They were joined by directors, Laura Brasero and Mario Lumbreras. Other fest winners like  Gonzalo Recio, Héctor Domínguez-Viguera and Carlos Mora Fuentes, awarded in the DOC.España programme for Tierra de leche y miel, also tread the green carpet right before the appearance of twin brother filmmakers Tarzan and Arab Nasser, the winners of the Silver Spike and the Miguel Delibes Award for Best Screenplay for their film Gaza mon amour. The green carpet parade was closed by Spanish filmmaker Juanma Bajo Ulloa, whose latest film, Baby, was the subject of a  special screening in this edition, and the president of Spain’s Film Academy, Mariano Barroso.