Seminci reviews the careers of Julieta Serrano, Jean-Claude Carrière, Val del Omar, Fernando Colomo and López Vázquez

Premiered at the festival will be Javier Kühn’s documentary 19, in which eleven renowned Spanish actors and actresses reveal their positive and transformative experiences in situations of uncertainty

The singer Jeanette and the writers Ian Gibson and Luis Cernuda are the protagonists of other screenings in this edition, which will also show the posthumous work of the filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius, murdered in Ukraine

The programme of the 67th edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival includes numerous premieres and special projections which review the careers of different personalities from the world of culture. Among these are the hispanist Ian Gibson and his relationship with Luis Buñuel; the Spanish performers Julieta Serrano and José Luis López Vázquez; the filmmakers Jean-Claude Carrière, Fernando Colomo, Mantas Kvedaravičius and José Val del Omar; the writer Luis Cernuda, and the singer Jeanette.

Special screenings include the already announced programmes of the Patio Herreriano Museum, dedicated to the fine arts, with films on the artists Paul Gauguin and Remedios Varo, and of Casa de la India which will screen a documentary on the influence of Mahatma Ghandi‘s philosophy of non-violence.

Seminci will also premiere the Spanish documentary 19, by Javier Kühn, in which eleven renowned Spanish actors and actresses (Luis Tosar, Imanol Arias, Javier Gutiérrez, Belén Rueda, Unax Ugalde, Lolita Flores, Alicia Borrachero, Fele Martínez, Marián Álvarez and María Castro) participate, each stripping before the cameras while at the same time revealing the uplifting and transformative experiences they have lived during these difficult recent times.

Tributes to leading figures from the world of cinema

Leading figures from the world of cinema are the protagonists of various special screenings. The documentary El viaje de Julieta (Pancho G. Matienzo, Spain) offers us a view of the life of Julieta Serrano, as a person and as an artist whose commitment to acting is, for her, synonymous with rigour, versatility and service, and above all an overwhelming passion for a profession to which she has dedicated her whole life. The documentary brings together the recollections and testimonies of numerous members of her profession, including Pedro Almodóvar, Héctor Alterio, Antonio Banderas, Ana Belén, Rossy de Palma, Carme Elías, Nuria Espert, Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, Paco León, Barbara Lluch, Marisa Paredes, José Carlos Plaza, Anna R. Costa, Miguel Rellán, Mireia Ros, Alfonso Ungría and Gerardo Vera.

Goya, el ojo que escucha (José Luis López-Linares, France/Spain) pays tribute to the French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, who passed away in February 2012 at the age of 89. The artist travelled to Spain -on what would be his final visit to our country- to once again contemplate and admire the paintings of Francisco de Goya while being filmed by López-Linares in the Prado Museum, his native town of Fuendetodos and La Cartuja de Zaragoza, just three of the thirty places exhibiting his works.

Seminci will also host the premiere of the documentary José Luis López Vázquez: ¡Qué disparate! (Roberto J. Oltra, Spain) in tribute to the actor in the year of the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth. Scripted by his son, José Luis López Magerus, the documentary presents a sincere and honest account of the actor as told by friends, colleagues and family, revealing the most intimate aspects of an integral and essential artist in the history of Spanish cinema.

The craft of filmmaking is explored in the documentary La soledad del director de fondo (Manuel Iborra, Spain). The Spanish filmmaker Fernando Colomo chats about cinema-related matters through scenes from the films of his French, Swiss, Italian, American and Japanese masters. In addition, Seminci will premiere Mariupolis 2, a posthumous documentary by Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius, killed by Russian forces in April 2022 during the siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. His partner recovered his body and the footage that was taken while Kvedaravičius was on the battlefield preparing a new film.

Val del Omar, poeta audiovisual (Jesús Ponce, Spain) is a documentary that traces the life and work of an indispensable figure in the history of Spanish cinema: José Val del Omar. Winner of a Special Mention award at the Cannes Film Festival of 1961 and creator of extraordinary techniques such as diaphonic sound or tactile vision, Val del Omar can be considered a precursor of the zoom and, given his conception of total cinema, virtual reality. Photographer, poet, film director, inventor or ‘cinemist’ – as he liked to call himself – but above all a man ahead of his time, he was a true pioneer of many of today’s audiovisual techniques.

Literature and music

Where Memory Ends (Pablo Romero-Fresco, Spain/UK) is a documentary about the historian Ian Gibson and a life dedicated to recovering, from his Irish perspective, the recent memory of our country through the lives of Lorca, Dalí and Buñuel. To do so, Ian Gibson makes the same trip that Buñuel made to Las Hurdes in 1933 to make a documentary about the Spain of the time and chats with the filmmaker Carlos Saura and the historian Román Gubernes.

With Luis Cernuda, el habitante del olvido, Adolfo Dufour offers a creative documentary, full of poetry and meaning where the words and life of the Sevillian writer Luis Cernuda are presented hand in hand. Cultural figures such as Juan Pinilla, Gloria Vega, Antonio Rivero Taravillo, James Valender and Luis Antonio de Villenaun are a few of those participating in the documentary. 

In its special screenings, the 67th Seminci will premiere the documentary Soy rebelde (Paloma Concejero, Spain), which traces the path towards the Spanish Transition through the songs of a reference figure in melodic music: the composer and singer Jeanette. The documentary brings together contributions of colleagues, friends and personalities who talk about the influence that the singer and composer has had on their lives. These include José Luis Perales, Manuel Alejandro, Carlos Saura, M.A. Carreño “Micky”, Carlos Tena, Juan de Pablos, Lidia Falcón, José María García, Manuela Carmena, Cristina Almeida, Albert Plá, Coque Malla, J.L Campuzano “Sherpa”, Soleá Morente, Manu Chao and Ana Torrent, as well as Jeanette Kristof herself.

Art in the Patio Herreriano

The special screenings also include the programme of the Patio Herreriano – Museum of Spanish Contemporary Art and Casa de la India, which are working in collaboration with Seminci this year offering new spaces for activities and screenings. In the former, the festival will programme three of the special screenings already announced, all closely associated to the world of art: An Imaginary Land, by Juan Solanas (France/Uruguay, 2022); Gauguin y el Canal, by Frank Spano (Panama/Spain, 2022), and Remedios Varo. Misterio y revelación, by Tufic Makhlouf Akl (Mexico/France, 2013).

On October 24 and coinciding with Diwali, the Hindu New Year, Casa de la India will screen the documentary Ahimsa Gandhi: The Power of the Powerless, by Ramesh Sharma (India, 2021).