Eleven films to compete for the RTVE-Otra Mirada Award at San Sebastian Festival

Eleven films will compete for the XV RTVE-Otra Mirada Award at the 69th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, running from September 17 to 25. Every year the Corporation gives its award to feature films at the event on subjects close to the world of women; directed, starring or written by women; or also by men whose films show particular sensitivity towards the world of women.

The jury at this edition is made up of Concepción Cascajosa, president of the RTVE Equality Observatory and board member of the Corporation; actress Anna Castillo (Mediterráneo, which will screen at the Festival, La llamada, Viaje al cuarto de una madre, Estoy vivo…) and journalist Rosa Zufia, who has worked, amongst others, at both EITB and Tabakalera-International Centre for Contemporary Culture.

The eleven candidates

The four titles in the Official Selection competing for the award are: Du Som Er I Himlen / As In Heaven,  by Tea Lindeburg (Denmark); Crai Nou / Blue Moon, by Alina Grigore (Romania); Camila saldrá esta noche / Camila Comes Out Tonight, by Inés Barrionuevo (Argentina), and Maixabel, by Iciar Bollaín (Spain).

The competitors in New Directors are Nich’ya / The Unwanted, by Lena Lanskhin (Russia), and in Horizontes Latinos, Noche de fuego, by Tatiana Huezo (Mexico-USA-Uruguay-Germany and Qatar).

There are two competing titles in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera: Cenzorka / 107 Mothers, by Peter Kerekes (Slovakia-Ukraine) and Razzhimaya Kulaki / Unclenching the Fists, by Kira Kovalenko (Russia), while candidates in the Perlak section are Benedetta, by Paul Verhoeven (France- Netherlands); Ouistreham / Between Two Worlds, by Emmanuel Carrère (France), and Titane, by Julia Ducournau (France-Belgium).

Like in previous editions, the award comes with acquisition of the broadcasting rights for the winning film. The competing movies are selected by the Festival from those having their premiere at each edition. Last year the winning film was Never Rarely Sometimes Always, by Eliza Hittman (UK-USA).

RTVE, Official Sponsor of the San Sebastian Festival, will once again show its support of the cinema with a special programme playing on all its channels and on the RTVE Play platform broadcast from the capital of Gipuzkoa, as well as its participation in different titles screening at the festival: Maixabel and El buen patrón / The Good Boss (both competing for the Golden Shell), La hija / The Daughter, Josefina / Josephine and Competencia oficial / Official Competition.

In addition, Érase una vez en Euskadi / Once Upon a Time in Euskadi and Mediterráneo / Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea will premiere at two galas organised by the Corporation during the Festival on September 22 and 23.

OFFICIAL SELECTION

DU SOM ER I HIMLEN / AS IN HEAVEN

TEA LINDEBURG (DENMARK)

Country(ies) of production: Denmark

Cast: Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl, Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen, Palma Lindeburg Leth, Anna-Olivia Øster Coakley, Flora Augusta, Kirsten Olesen, Lisbet Dahl, Stine Fischer Christensen, Thure Lindhardt, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt

One day at the end of the 1800s, 14-year-old Lise’s life is changed forever. She is the eldest of her siblings, the first in her family to go to school and full of hope and confidence in life. But when her mother goes into labour, it quickly appears that something is wrong. As night falls and the labour progresses, Lise begins to understand that a day that began in childhood might end with her becoming the woman of the house.

CRAI NOU / BLUE MOON

ALINA GRIGORE (ROMANIA)

Country(ies) of production: Romania

Cast: Ioana Chitu, Mircea Postelnicu, Mircea Silaghi, Vlad Ivanov

The film follows the psychological journey of a young woman to her dehumanizing process. Irina struggles to achieve higher education and escape the violence of her dysfunctional family. An ambiguous sexual experience with an artist will spur her intention to fight the violence in her family…

CAMILA SALDRÁ ESTA NOCHE / CAMILA COMES OUT TONIGHT

INÉS BARRIONUEVO (ARGENTINA)

Country(ies) of production: Argentina

Cast: Nina Dziembrowski, Maite Valero, Diego Sánchez, Adriana Ferrer, Guillermo Pfening

When her grandmother falls seriously ill, Camila must move to Buenos Aires, leaving her friends and an easy-going comprehensive school for a traditional private institution. Camila’s ferocious but immature temperament will be put to the test. 

MAIXABEL

ICIAR BOLLAÍN (SPAIN)

Country(ies) of production: Spain

Cast: Luis Tosar, Blanca Portillo, Urko Olazabal, María Cerezuela

Maixabel Lasa lost her husband, Juan María Jáuregui, assassinated by ETA in 2000. Eleven years later, she receives an unusual request: One of the murderers has asked to meet her in the Nanclares de la Oca prison in Álava, where he is serving a sentence after having severed ties with the terrorist gang. Despite the doubts and the immense pain, Maixabel Lasa agrees to meet face to face with the people who ended in cold blood with the life of who had been her partner since the age of sixteen. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” she says when asked about the reasons for sitting in front of her husband’s killer.

NICH’YA / UNWANTED

LENA LANSKIH

Country(ies) of production: Russia

Cast: Olga Malahova, Vladimir Shabelnikov, Tatiana Tihmeneva, Slava Baranov, Ivan Ivashov, Tatiana Vorotnikova

Fourteen-year-old Vika lives in a small provincial town in Russia’s Ural region. She picks wild berries that grow on the wetlands and helps her mom sell them in the street market. She enjoys her choreography classes at school. And she has a baby that nobody must ever know about.

NOCHE DE FUEGO / PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN

TATIANA HUEZO (EL SALVADOR - MEXICO)

Country(ies) of production: Mexico - Germany - Brazil - Qatar

Cast: Ana Cristina Ordóñez González, Marya Membreño, Mayra Batalla

In a solitary town nestled in the Mexican mountains, the girls wear boyish haircuts and have hiding places underground. Ana and her two best friends take over the houses of those who have fled and dress up as women when no one is watching. In their own impenetrable universe, magic and joy abound; meanwhile, their mothers train them to flee from those who turn them into slaves or ghosts. But one day, one of the girls doesn’t make it to her hideout in time.

CENZORKA / 107 MOTHERS

PÉTER KEREKES (SLOVAKIA)

Country(ies) of production: Slovakia - Czech Republic - Ukraine

Cast: Maryna Klimova, Iryna Kiryazeva, Lyubov Vasylyna

Lesya has committed a crime of passion which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurses and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children too. If not for the color of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.

RAZZHIMAYA KULAKI / UNCLENCHING THE FISTS

KIRA KOVALENKO (RUSSIA)

Country(ies) of production: Russia

Cast: Milana Aguzarova, Alik Karaev, Soslan Khugaev, Khetag Bibilov, Arsen Khetagurov, Milana Pagieva

High in the mountains of North Ossetia the small mining town of Mizur nestles between the sheer cliffs. Following certain dramatic events, Zaur moved his children Ada, Akim and Dakko here. Zaur is a strict father who prizes discipline above all and doesn’t feel the difference between care and overprotection. His eldest son, Akim, already escaped from his father to work in Rostov, the closest city to Mizur. His younger brother, Dakko, has yet to decide what he wants from life, and their sister Ada is actively planning her escape. She is a grown woman but her father still treats her as a baby. Ada will soon realize that it will be very hard to escape her father’s embrace and begin her own new life. The return of Akim will illuminate the family’s unspoken and unhealed traumas.

BENEDETTA

PAUL VERHOEVEN (NETHERLANDS)

Country(ies) of production: France - Netherlands

Cast: Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Daphné Patakia, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin

In the late 15th century, with plague ravaging the land, Benedetta Carlini joins the convent in Pescia, Tuscany, as a novice. Capable from an early age of performing miracles, Benedetta’s impact on life in the community is immediate and momentous.

OUISTREHAM / BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

EMMANUEL CARRÈRE (FRANCE)

Country(ies) of production: France

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Didier Pupin, Emily Madeleine, Evelyne Porée, Hélène Lambert, Léa Carne

Best-selling author Marianne Winckler decides to write a book about precarious working conditions and sets out to experience the reality for herself. Without revealing her true identity, she lands a job as a cleaner in a town in Normandy, in northern France, discovering a life ignored by the rest of society where every euro earned or spent counts. Despite the harshness of the situation, the solidarity between colleagues creates a strong bond of friendship between Marianne and her co-workers. Lending one another a hand leads to friendship and friendship leads to trust. But what happens to that trust when the truth comes to light?

TITANE

JULIA DUCOURNAU (FRANCE)

Country(ies) of production: France

Cast: Agathe Rouselle, Vincent Lindon

Not in competition

Following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for 10 years. TITANIUM: A metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys.