30 Asturian films, including short and feature films, will be screened at the 61st edition of the Gijón International Film Festival. The event thus consolidates its commitment to making the region’s cinema more visible and demonstrates that Asturias has an audiovisual sector with a greater representation every year.
Three Asturian titles will have their world premiere in the Official Section
After debuting in 2017 with Bajo la piel de lobo, Samu Fuentes presents in the Official Section Retueyos, Los últimos pastores. In it he offers us a portrait that, crossed by the different seasons, reveals the way of life of two shepherd brothers from Picos de Europa dedicated to this ancestral activity doomed to extinction.
Los últimos pastores by Samu Fuentes
Also in Retueyos, Elisa Cepedal, who premiered at FICX her debut film El trabajo o a quién le pertenece el mundo in 2019, reconstructs with El cine, 5; the memory of Barredos, a small mining town in Asturias and the filmmaker’s place of origin, which is now a post-industrial landscape in decline. She does so through the oral testimonies of its inhabitants and the archive created by her grandfather, the village’s local photographer.
El cine, 5 by Elisa Cepedal
With seven awards behind her, obtained during the 58th FICX with her first film, La calle del agua, in which she rescued photographer Benjamina Miyar from oblivion, Celia Viada Caso accompanies in Gregoria, presented in the Official Short Film Section, a ninety-year-old woman who never stopped working her plot of land, who went to the El Fontán market every week to sell her products and who was able to enjoy simple pleasures and freedom in her decisions.
Gregoria by Celia Viada Caso
The Esbilla Section has more Asturian presence than ever before
Two other feature films from Asturias will have their world premiere at FICX, in the Esbilla Premiere Section. Luismi Pantiga offers us in Flores del cemento, a debut feature filmed entirely in Gijón, a thriller with all the ingredients of neo-quinqui cinema: blood, drugs, bad company and easy money.
Flores del cemento by Luismi Pantiga
Literato is the latest film by Carlos Navarro, a comedy in which actor Maxi Rodríguez, who is also the screenwriter, plays a separated man who returns to his hometown in the Cuencas Mineras and becomes the talk of the town for having an affair with an old woman.
Literato by Carlos Navarro
The presence of Asturian cinema covers almost the entirety of Esbilla – Equí y n’otru tiempu, a section that proposes stimulating looks at the past and the present in a non-fiction key. Álex Galán presents Il Mulín, a feature film about the determination of a village not to die in silence; Cigarreres, by Pablo A. Quiroga Prendes & Alejandro Nafría, tells the story of the last workers of the Tobacco Factory in the neighborhood of Cimavilla, heirs of a matriarchal tradition that lasted until its closure in 2002; Hinterland, by Manuel García Postigo, focuses on the first working-class neighborhoods that emerged in the mid-twentieth century in Gijón with the aim of housing the growing mass of workers who came to the call of employment in the local industry; El amigo de todos, by José Antonio Quirós, which is presented in collaboration with the GESTO Cultural Society, traces from the memory of a child, now an adult, the figure of a former Nazi officer who settled in Asturias after World War II; La vida a través de Vega, by José Riveiro, approaches the Asturian Valentín Vega, considered one of the most relevant photographers of the last century; and also with a photographer as protagonist, Crónicas de un viaje, by José Mata, offers an intimate vision of the creative mind of García de Marina.
Il Mulín by Álex Galán
Esbilla Espectru presents, after its screening at the Rotterdam Festival, Diego Llorente’s third feature film, Notas sobre un verano. In it, he tells the story of a young woman who spends the summer in her native Asturias and asks herself if the life she leads in Madrid is the one she really wants. The Espectru section also features Cantar a un batallón, an animated film by Inés G. Aparicio, which in the last edition received the New Directors Award 2022 in its project phase, and which is now being shown as a Work-In-Progress. In it, the director conceives a story full of wonderful characters, free women, dreams without borders and unforgettable melodies. The project will be shown alongside Isabel Herguera’s El sueño de la sultana.
Notas sobre un verano by Diego Llorente
Local talent, universal views
The Asturies Curtiumetraxes section offers, with the support of RTPA, films in this format divided into competition and exhibition sections.among the short films programmed in Competition is Les Praeres, in which director Iván Menéndez documents the story of a man who stopped being a hunter because of the friendship created with a doe. In La nueche, by Diego Flórez, an old man recalls the summer nights of his childhood; and Lía Lugilde, who last year presented Breves anotaciones sobre una ruptura in the Muestra section, competes on this occasion with Los trazos que quedan de ti; a short film that rescues Ramón from oblivion, whose existence, hidden until recently in a box between the beams of a breadbox, comes to light after three generations. Elmer Guevara, who won the RTPA Award in this same section for two consecutive years, reveals in his latest work, Fañagüetu, skateboarding conceived as a way to give meaning to life and overcome insecurities.
Fañagüetu by Elmer Guevara
Three co-productions with other countries are also in competition: La main, by Javier San Miguel, made, in co-production with France, unveils a story of ghosts and heartbreak that reflects on memory; La vista de las aves acuáticas, by Irene Fernández Palomino & Jeff El-Eini, co-produced with the United States, makes us witness an unexpected encounter that will change the way of seeing the life of the protagonist who is, in turn, co-director of the film. Another co-production, in this case with Cuba, is Jíbaro, by Osmanys Sánchez Arañó, which tells the story of a young transgender man who, tired of suffering discrimination, decides to go into the mountains of Cuba’s Sierra Maestra. Finally, in Yashika. Mov, Antonio Llaneza Díaz makes the idea of identity theft germinate in his protagonist.
Jíbaro by Osmanys Sánchez Arañó
In Asturies Curtiumetraxes – Muestra seven works are presented: La fabulosa curva al equilibrio, by Graciela Mier, focuses on a woman who decides to make a radical turn in her life; Váter-casa-violín, by Laura Suárez Fernández, puts the focus on the protest of a violinist against the noise that the highway generates at the doors of his house; Alma, by Paula Fernández, explores the reality of a person with dissociative disorder; with Lo Siento, Padre; Raúl Malagás, poses a great moral dilemma to a parish priest; Hablar de estas cosas, by Fernando Lorenzana, confronts a pending conversation between friends; Conexiones, by Gloria Gutiérrez Asla, approaches a young woman who would like to be in reality who she says she is in the virtual world; and Beatus Ille, by Nel González Iglesias, Asturian winner of the competition Rodando en… donde puedas contest organized by FICX with the Conseyu de Mocedá de Xixón and the Conseyu de la Mocedá del Principau d’Asturies, focuses on an unusual pandemic confinement.
For its part, the short film Bullicio de amor, by Harper, also awarded in the competition Rodando en… donde puedas with the Jury Prize, will be screened in the Enfants Terribles Section. Likewise, a special screening of Asturias refugio climático, by Pablo de Soto & Nadia Penella, a work that complements the exhibition Motores del clima, currently on view at LABoral Centro de Arte, will take place. In addition, the feature film project by Asturian Alicia Moncholí, Los fines de semana, has been selected in the development modality of SEMILLERU Lab.
