Festival De Sevilla

The decision of the SEFF’11 jury to award the main prizes to new filmmakers confirms the Festival’s tendency to support new creators and especially female filmmakers

The Norwegian director of Always Happy, Anne Sewitsky and the German director responsible for If not us, who ?, Andres Veiel join other new directors who came out reinforced from the Seville event, such as Solveig Anspach (Back soon), Urzula Antoniak (Nothing Personal), Mijke de Jong (Katia’s sister), Jessica Hausner (Lourdes) or the winner of the last edition Mohamed Al-Daradji, responsible for the recently released Son of Babylon in Spain.

And it is that, made like the premiere of this last tape in our country confirms that the prizes to the distribution granted by the Seville Film Festival serve to make the work of these new directors reach a greater segment of public, by favoring their Premiere in Spain.

In this same line, And within the support of the youngest cinema that gains strength in Europe, the SEFF has reinforced its section First Films First, dedicated to first works, with the entrance in the program Eye on Films, promoted by Media Mundus, that includes films of first directors Both European and non-European. In particular, the winner of the section, which featured ten raw operas, was the Iranian novelist Morteza Farshbad with the film Mourning.

The festival has also offered a wide range of films by women, with five directors competing in Official Selection, which has resulted in the final triumph of Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky, who is responsible for Siempre feliz Won an outstanding award in his American performance at the Sundance Independent Film Festival.

EURODOC

For its part, the documentary section also awarded a first work: the feature film by the Cadiz director Raul Santos, whose film on the sentimental history of Gibraltar La Roca has come back from Seville, highlighted in the media and with a large influx of assistants.

The festival also featured short film selection for the EFA European Film Academy Awards and a collection of Russian and Andalusian short films to showcase emerging talent emerging from filmmakers and continue to discover new ways To see and tell stories of European youth.

Also notable was the presence of the new generation of Russian filmmakers, with presences such as that of Valeriya Guy Germanika and his provocative intervention in the inaugural gala, Or Nicholay Khomeriki’s Official Section (with the urban drama Heart’s boomerang). The festival also collaborated with the presentation of two new values ​​of interpretation, participating in the European program Shooting Stars (dedicated to new values ​​of interpretation), with the presence of two actresses participating in the project, Natasha Petrovic and AnaГЇs Demoustier, Who presented their films in Seville as participants in the European tour financed by the MEDIA program.

The festival complements this offer of the work of new values ​​with the retrospectives and awards to prominent filmmakers, such as Nikita Mikhalkov or Amos Gitai, as well as offering a selection of films pre-nominated by the European Film Academy (EFA). Specific, SEFF has programmed three of the five nominations for Best Picture (Le Havre by Akis Kaurismak, Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist and Susanne Bier’s In a Better World, which won the previous edition).

MEDIA REPERCUSTION

These and other activities of the Festival have had a great impact in the national and international media, highlighting their presence on the cover of the magazine Variety sector (the most important internationally) and information collected by specialized media Leaders in the country, such as the magazine Fotogramas or the television programs DГ­as de cine (TVE) and Tentaciones (Canal Plus). Also, the national and international coverage of the festival has reached the most popular news in the country (TVE-2, Presented by Pepa Bueno) and other international channels, such as RAI, RT Moscow, the Spanish-language television channel of Russia; Radio Guadalajara (Mexico), the German magazine Film Deinst and Russia Today, an Internet portal available in seven languages.

The German ‘If not us, who?’ Won the Silver Giraldillo and the Best Actor Award, and the Spanish ‘Futures Market’, by Mercedes ГЃlvarez, obtained the special mention of the Asecan Prize. The silent film ‘The Artist’, sensation of the Festival, arrives in the Spanish cinemas Next December 16th

The films If not us, who ?, by AndrГ©s Veiel; And Mercedes ГЃlvarez Futures Market, both premiered at the Seville Festival in its Official Section, arrive today on the Spanish billboard. The two feature films premiered in the commercial rooms after being awarded by SEFF: the first with the Giraldillo de Plata and the award for Best Actor, August Diehl; While the documentary of Mercedes Alvarez obtained a special mention of the prize granted by Asecan within the SEFF.

With an economic endowment of 20,000 euros, destined to the distributor of the film in Spain, SEFF’11 fulfills its objective of seeing premieres in cinemas all over Europe its winning films. In the case of If not us who? The jury highlighted how to contemplate “the problems of ideology, youth, and violence, offering a shocking reading on the recent history of Europe, which has a great relevance for all of us today.”

Also, August Diehl was awarded “a tremendous performance, by representing a complex character in different phases of his life and to support a talented European novel actor.”

Based on the novel by Gerd Koenen and inspired by real events, Andres Veiel presents the history of the marriage Bernard Vesper-Gudrun Ensslin, young leftists of bourgeois and accommodated origin, who form a group of university students dissatisfied with the economic and social direction of Germany Western in the 60s, whom they see as a puppet of American imperialist politics, Becoming the later germ of the Fraction of the Red Army.

FUTURE MARKET

The new film by the director of El cielo gira, Mercedes ГЃlvarez, is another of the bets of the Spanish billboard of this weekend. Futuro market competed in the Official Section of the Festival and is a singular cinematographic portrait on the life of objects and, in particular, on the hot topic of the housing market and the transformation of urban spaces in Spain.

The real estate fever, which has intensified over the last decade, has transformed the cities, their centers, and peripheries as never before, and this tape stops in the new face of the cities, creating aberrant, desolate or useless urban spaces, dormitories and micro centers Leisure and consumption. “Logically, Came the idea of expressing this new aspect of the world – the new city – inside a virtual space, ephemeral, theatrical and without any memory: the pavilion of a real estate fair, “says the director.

In this way, Futures Market was shot in 2009 in real estate fairs, investment companies, congresses on leadership and other places in Barcelona and Madrid. “During the filming I had a persistent feeling of discomfort, which was accentuated when the camera appeared in spaces that, without being secret, can sometimes carry some confidentiality,” explains the director.

‘THE ARTIST’, IN DECEMBER

The Best Film of the EFA (European Film Academy) selection was this year for The Artist, the film’s revelation of the season, which managed to dazzle audiences in Cannes. Thanks to the € 35,000 Endowment for the distributor of the film in Spain, the Spanish public will be able to see Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist on commercial cinema screens starting on December 16, after having premiered at the Seville Film Festival in November.

Since its release, The Artist has become the favorite film for European criticism, which does not doubt that its careful aesthetic captivates, equally, the academics of Hollywood. The film is a singular proposal shot in black and white and without dialogue and narrates the sunset of a silent movie star before the appearance of the sonorous. The protagonists are Jean Dujardin (Lucky Luke), Argentina BГ©rГ©nice Bejo and the Americans John Goodman, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller (Trapped by his past), Actress finally recovered for the cinema.

MARTIN-DOMINGUEZ, AT THE FESTIVAL OF SARAJEVO

Javier MartГ­n-DomГ­nguez, artistic director of the Seville European Film Festival, has been invited to be part of the jury of the next edition of the Sarajevo International Film Festival, one of the most Projection is reaching in recent years in Europe. In particular, the film exhibition of the Bosnian capital was born in 1995 as an act of resistance during the siege to which the city was subjected for years. Today is an indispensable meeting where some of the young talents of the Balkan Europe are presented, has the support of European institutions and recognizes consolidated trajectories such as the Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, which was dedicated last year.