‘Film face to face’. This is how the Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival will become, from 15 to 23 November, an ideal meeting place for audiences and filmmakers in which the city will also take on a leading role.
In this 62nd edition, FICX will screen 75 Spanish (co-)productions, which reinforces its commitment to Spanish cinema. In addition to unveiling 6 Spanish productions in its Official Short Film Section, the Festival has already announced all the titles that will complete its two main competitive sections: Albar and Retueyos.
Ado Arrieta and Celia Rico Clavellino will star in the spotlights of the 62nd FICX, together with the already announced Gala Hernández López.
Free, unusual, daring. The iconic director and precursor of independent cinema, Ado Arrieta, will be the protagonist of one of the FICX Spotlights. After developing part of his filmography in Spain, the filmmaker and painter from Madrid moved to Paris, where he lived through the May ‘68 revolution and met personalities such as Marguerite Duras and Jean Marais (a regular actor with Jean Cocteau, a filmmaker of reference in Arrieta’s work).
His filmography includes Spanish and French productions, all of them marked by a recognisable plastic and poetic beauty and a markedly playful intention. Arrieta’s films have been praised by artists such as Duras herself or the always missed Jonas Mekas.
The Festival will screen six of the director’s most representative works, chosen by the filmmaker himself, including the short films La imitación del ángel (1966) and Vacanza permanente (2006); the medium-length film Tam Tam (1976); and three feature films: Las intrigas de Sylvia Couski (1975), considered to be the first Parisian underground film; Flammes (1978) and Bella durmiente (2016), a particular adaptation of the classic for which he counts on the brilliant performances of Mathieu Amalric and Niels Schneider.
Ado Arrieta
Celia Rico Clavellino will also be the protagonist of one of the spotlights at the 62nd FICX. The director from Seville, who began her career alongside renowned filmmakers such as Pablo Berger and José Luis Guerín, made her short film Luisa no está en casa (2012), which was screened in Venice and at the Malaga Festival and won a Gaudí Award. He then participated in the screenplay for Quatretondeta, a film by Pol Rodríguez that received several nominations for the Goya Awards in 2017. With Viaje al cuarto de una madre (2018), starring Lola Dueñas and Anna Castillo, he presents his debut feature, winning a Special Mention at the San Sebastian Festival, the Asecan Award for Best Film, two nominations for the Feroz Awards and a Goya nomination for Best New Director. With his second feature film, Los pequeños amores (2024), he once again focuses his narrative on maternal-filial bonds alongside the actresses María Vázquez and Adriana Ozores, and won the Special Jury Prize at Malaga, as well as two other awards at San Sebastian and Toulouse.
Celia Rico Clavellino
In addition to the spotlights on Ado Arrieta and Celia Rico Clavellino, the multidisciplinary artist and researcher from Murcia, Gala Hernández López, has already been announced.
The Albar Official Selection unveils its fascinating programme in its entirety
Six new titles complete the Albar Official Selection alongside the previously announced films: L’Empire by Bruno Dumont; Good One by India Donaldson; Eight Postcards From Utopia by Radu Jude & Christian Ferencz-Flatz; Retaguardia by Ramón Lluís Bande; La prisonnière de Bordeaux by Patricia Mazuy; Vulcanizadora by Joel Potrykus, Tú me abrasas by Matías Piñeiro and Dying by Matthias Glasner.
Le roman de Jim (France) is the latest feature film by brothers Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu. A moving portrait of fatherhood, it arrives in the Albar Official Selection after its premiere at Cannes Premiere. The French directors, who competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes with Painting or Making Love in 2005, closed the 2021 edition of FICX with their film Tralala. Their works have been selected at festivals such as Locarno, San Sebastian, London and Rotterdam.
Le roman de Jim by Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu
An expert in portraying the unknowns of human nature, the prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, already a classic in the Festival programme, presents By the Stream (Rep. of Korea). The double winner of the FICX Official Selection invites us to reflect on creation with his latest work. And he does so through an artist and university professor played by Kim Minhee, winner of the Leopard for Best Actress at the Locarno Festival.
By the Stream by Hong Sang-soo
In Condenados (Denmark, Sweden), Swedish director Gustav Möller presents a disturbing psychological thriller that challenges the sense of justice of a prison warden, brilliantly played by the multi-award-winning actress Sidse Babett Knudsen. The film arrives at the Festival after its screening in the Berlin Official Selection.
Ray Yeung offers with Todo va a salir bien (Hong Kong) a different look at the love between two elderly women in an environment where it is important to keep up appearances. The LGTBI theme is common in the work of the Hong Kong filmmaker, who has been shown at international competitions such as the Berlinale, where he won the Teddy Award for his new work.
Los malditos (Italy, United States, Belgium) is a revision of the American Civil War through the prism of Roberto Minervini. For the first time, the Italian director has made a completely fictional feature film with echoes of post-western after having made, with a very personal vision, non-fiction works such as The Other Side (Louisiana) or Stop the Pounding Heart, in which he portrayed deep America. Los Malditos arrives at the FICX Official Selection after receiving the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director at Cannes.
The best representative of French romantic-dramatic comedy, the filmmaker Emmanuel Mouret, returns to participate in the Albar Official Selection with Trois amies (France). The FICX had his feature film Las cosas que decimos, las cosas que hacemos in 2020 and the presence of the filmmaker in the 60th edition with Chronicle of an ephemeral love. On this occasion, Mouret tells the story of a woman who has to rebuild her life after losing her husband. The film, which premiered in the Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival, features magnificent performances by Camille Cottin, Sara Forestier, India Hair and the always impeccable Vincent Macaigne.
Trois amies by Emmanuel Mouret
New film talents join the Retueyos Official Selection
In addition to January 2 by Zsófia Szilágyi; Flathead by Jaydon Martin; Algo viejo, algo nuevo, algo prestado by Hernán Rosselli; Peaches Goes Bananas by Marie Losier; Fogo do vento by Marta Mateus; and Mother Vera by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson, seven titles by promising filmmakers make up an unbeatable programme in the Retueyos Official Selection.
Itoiz udako sesioak (Spain) by Larraitz Zuazo, Zuri Goikoetxea and Ainhoa Andraka, revives the story of the Basque progressive / symphonic rock band Itoiz, which after enjoying recognition in the 1980s, ended up disbanding at the end of that decade. The feature film was part of a special programme within Cannes Doc that was developed in collaboration with FICX and ZINEBI and is presented in Gijón in the form of a joint premiere in collaboration with the Basque festival.
FICX will feature the world premiere of River Returns (Japan). This is the third feature film by Masakazu Kaneko, a director who places the link between man and nature at the heart of his stories and who films with exceptional delicacy. The film is reminiscent of the animated universe of the Ghibli Studios in real life.
River Returns by Masakazu Kaneko
The Festival will also host the world premiere of Luna. With his second feature film, the Asturian director Pablo Casanueva carries out a process of research into the memory of his family, who were almost exterminated during the Civil War and Franco’s regime, finding their story ‘at the borders, in the camps and in the prisons’.
Yo vi tres luces negras (Colombia, Mexico, Germany, France) is the second feature film by Santiago Lozano Álvarez. In it, he goes into the Colombian jungle to accompany an elderly man who lost his son to paramilitary militia in a rite of passage towards death. In addition to the beauty of the space and the choice of framing, there is the spectacular cinematography by Juan Velásquez. The film won the Audience Award in the Panorama Section of the Berlinale.
Sacha Amaral debuts with El placer es mío (Argentina, Brazil, France), a debut feature film starring a magnetic and troubled young man who manages to take advantage of whoever crosses his path. The film, which won the Grand Prix at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival (BAFICI), will have its European premiere at FICX.
The director Elizabeth Lo, who won the Best Film Award in the Retueyos Section in 2020 with Stray, returns to compete in this edition of FICX with Mistress Dispeller (China, USA). In it, the filmmaker offers a look at modern-day China through a new profession that has emerged with the rise of the internet: Mistress Dispeller.
Out of competition, the Festival will screen the medium-length film What Mary Didn’t Know (Greece, France, Sweden), which had its premiere at the Locarno competition and was directed by Konstantina Kotzamani, twice nominated for the European Film Awards for her previous short films and who presented Electric Swan at FICX in 2019. On this occasion, the Greek filmmaker takes us on a cruise around the Mediterranean in a fabulous medley between Las mil y una noches and classical mythology, and does so from the perspective of a teenager lost on board this voyage through the sea, life and daydreams.
What Mary Didn’t Know by Konstantina Kotzamani,
The FICX completes its Official Short Film Section with six Spanish productions
Six exceptional titles join the already announced Revolving Rounds by Johann Lurf & Christina Jauernik; Being John Smith by John Smith; Sheep Out by Zofia Klamka; Todos los futuros by Bárbara Cerro; Freeride in C by Edmunds Jansons; Better This Way by Emanuel Pârvu; and Closeout by Agnė Girsaitė in the Official Short Film Section.
Three of the new proposals arise from the renewed collaboration between FICX and the Bilbao International Documentary and Short Film Festival (ZINEBI). This year, in addition to a feature film, both festivals share the premieres of the short films Errotatiba by Iratxe Fresneda; Horizontal by Alex Reynolds and Campolivar by Alicia Moncholí.
Artist and filmmaker Alex Reynolds has made Horizontal, an atmospheric short film in which a girl takes on the role of an adult. Reynolds’ work has been exhibited at prestigious contemporary art museums and festivals such as the BFI London Film Festival, FIDMarseille and Documenta Madrid.
The director and researcher from Bilbao Iratxe Fresneda, who passed through FICX with Lurralde Hotzak (2018) and Tetuán (2022), presents in Errotatiba a reflection on memory through the images of the disused presses and offices of a former newsroom, that of the Basque newspaper Egin.
With the short film Campolivar, the Asturian filmmaker Alicia Moncholí presents a courageous analysis of her memories of her father through incandescent family archive material. The filmmaker won the New Directors Award of the Principality of Asturias in 2021.
Campolivar by Alicia Moncholí
Diego Flórez, also from Asturias and winner of the FICX New Directors Award in 2023, offers in Una lluz a review of historical spaces related to mining in the Asturian Basin.
Una lluz by Diego Flórez
Maider Fernández Iriarte, director who visited FICX in 2019 with Las letras de Jordi and in 2022 with Fe, now presents Una trabaja, la otra no (One works, the other doesn’t). With a title that pays homage to the film by the also much-missed Agnès Varda, Una canta, la otra no; the filmmaker from San Sebastian shows, with a touch of sarcastic humour, the day-to-day life of two women who work in the audiovisual sector.
The FICX will also feature in its Official Short Film Section El mal d’Hèrcules, an observational work on the treatment of epilepsy in a Barcelona hospital, which emerged as a project of the Master’s Degree in Documentary Film at the Autonomous University of Barcelona-UAB (coordinated by filmmaker Jorge Tur) and signed by Marta Rodríguez Quesada, Marina Miguel Pavia, Paula García Escolá, Laia Balaguer, Ismael Cabrera and Eulàlia Clarós Sidera.
The Night of the Spanish Short Film shines with its own light at the 62nd FICX
The Noche del Corto Español (Spanish Short Film Night) has been one of the most appreciated by the Festival’s audience for years. On this occasion, four female directors and two male directors have signed the titles that make up its attractive programme.
Carmen Jiménez approaches the childhood wounds that are carried over into adult life in Lava. The short film, a candidate for the Goya Awards, was present in the official sections of the Malaga and Seville festivals. The director is known as co-writer of Adiós by Paco Cabezas and the series La Mesías by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi.
In El norte, Catalan filmmaker Cordelia Alegre presents a grandmother and granddaughter who are unable to find their way home due to an episode of disorientation on the part of the former. A moving short film built around the director’s questions about care between generations.
María Abenia has made Las sirenas: a short film about femininity, sisterhood and memory in relation to the role of women in rural areas of the Canary Islands. The filmmaker returns to FICX after presenting Circe in 2022 and Sísifo in the last edition.
Las sirenas by María Abenia
Judoka is a short film by Ander Iriarte with a script by Estibaliz Urresola (director of 20,000 species of bees). In it, the camera reveals itself as the eyes of a character who lives in a state of constant anxiety and faces problems of social exclusion. Ander Iriarte is also co-director with Amaia Merino of Que se sepa (Indarkeriaren oi(h)artzunak), a feature film that will be part of the Esbilla – Equí y n’otru tiempo section of FICX.
Judoka by Ander Iriarte
Las chicas by Laura Obradors is a fantastic coming-of-age film starring teenage girls who face together the conflicts of their age, among which the question of gender stands out.
In Kokuhaku, by Adrià Guxens, a Japanese actor known for playing female characters relives his past during an interview. The short film arrives, after its screening at the Sitges Film Festival, at the Noche del Corto Español.
Kokuhaku by Adrià Guxens
