In the Meeting Point competition, the films On the Go, by María Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro; Negu hurbilak, by Colectivo Negu, and Muyeres, by Marta Lallana are selected

Negu hurbilak

Colectivo Negu

Negu hurbilak, the first film by Colectivo Negu, will participate in the Punto de Encuentro section after its world premiere in the Cineasti del Presente section of the Locarno International Film Festival, where it received a Special Mention from the Jury. Negu hurbilak is a film that talks about isolation, waiting and the eternal longing for identity, through the story of an escape in the context of the end of terrorism in the Basque Country in 2011.

Jone Laspiur (Goya Award for Best New Actress for Ane) is the young protagonist who runs away with the aim of crossing the border because she knows that this will take her far from her place of origin, from her home, where she is no longer safe. Her flight takes her to the Navarrese village of Zubieta, where, hidden in an attic, she observes a daily life apparently as immobile as stone while she seems to be waiting for instructions. Shot in 16mm in Zubieta itself, the cast is made up of some of the town’s own residents.

Colectivo Negu (formed at ESCAC by Basque directors Ekain Albite and Mikel Ibarguren, and Catalans Nicolau Mallofré and Adrià Roca)signed this film, made with the support of production companies Maluta Films and Cornelius Films, the participation of EiTB; the support of the Otxoa Foundation of Barandika; and the collaboration of Navarra Film Industry during the filming. Begin Again is in charge of the film’s distribution.

On the Go

María Gisèle Royo y Julia de Castro

Also backed by its great reception at Locarno, the Punto de Encuentro section will program in competition the Andalusian production On the Go, a feminine and LGTBIfriendly road movie by filmmakers María Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, produced by Jur Jur Producciones, Paola Alvarez Filmproduktion and Esperpento Films. Inspired by the cult film Corridas de alegría (1982), by Sevillian Gonzalo García Pelayo, a road movie about friendship and love failure, the directors revisit these two topics forty years later, immersed in the era of dating apps, eternal youth and economic insecurity. The film’s soundtrack features the collaboration of artists such as Miguelito García, Álvaro Romero, Leonor Leal and Paco Soto.

Starring Omar Ayuso (Elite), Chacha Huang (La casa de papel, Perdiendo el Este), Manuel de Blas (Goya en Burdeos, Los fantasmas de Goya, Sordo) and co-director Julia de Castro (The Pelayos, Por los pelos. A Story of Self-Esteem), in On the Go Milagros, an unemployed Sevillian, runs away from her single-parent insemination date in her father’s ’67 Corvair and decides to use the Grindr addiction of her friend Jonathan, who is looking to the app for solace from abandonment, to make a personalized selection of her potential stud. Jonathan’s reunion with a childhood sweetheart and a mysterious mermaid with a magic crown who speaks only English will make the journey take on surreal overtones, where music, dance and sensuality lead the main characters to unexpected encounters.

Muyeres

Marta Lallana

Punto de Encuentro will also program Muyeres, the first solo feature by Aragonese filmmaker Marta Lallana, a film that deals with the memory and traditions of the Asturian mountains of Somiedo, where Constantina and Irene, the last guardians of a centuries-old oral tradition destined to disappear, live. The musician Raül Refree (who returns to Seminci after giving a concert last year with the screening of the film La aldea maldita) travels there, interpreting himself, to record this legacy before it is extinguished.

Marta Lallana, who already participated in the Spanish Cinema section of the 64th Seminci with her debut feature, Ojos negros, co-directed with Ivet Castelo, presented Muyeres for the first time at the Shanghai International Film Festival and became one of the big winners of the event, winning the Grand Jury Prize and the award for Best Cinematography. This intergenerational and contemporary story shot in black and white is a Corte y Confección production.