The juries of the 71st edition of the San Sebastian festival delivered their verdict on Saturday September 30 in the evening. A list full of surprises, in which Argentine cinema has carved out a good part for itself.
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from our special correspondent,
The Argentine documentarian Martin Benchimol had to deal with a strong party in the section Latino horizons where heavyweight films like Tatiana Huezo with El Ecoalready multi-awarded in Berlin, Dolores Fonzi who presented her first feature film as director Blondeor even Lucia Puenzo with Los impactados. But from the applause and the laughter in the room during the screenings, it was clear that Benchimol’s film struck a chord with the public and undoubtedly the jury.Horizonteschaired by David Hurst, producer of films like The Colombians La Roya Or Anhell 69.
El Castillo is a bit of a fairy tale since it is the story of a castle and a heritage. Justina is a former domestic worker to whom her boss donated her castle and land upon her death. The castle, a baroque residence which takes the place of both the bunker and the medieval castle with its tower, with a facade eaten away by humidity, in the middle of nowhere, in other words the pampas… Justina inherited the residence and fields, on the promise never to sell. She lives with her daughter Alexia among silverware, rococo-style furniture, dark wood, crystal glasses and portraits of a family that is not hers. On the wall, we pass back and forth in front of the photograph of Norma, the former boss. A medallion portrait, 1930s style, of a young brunette woman with heavy hair.
“ I came to my bosses’ family at the age of five “, Justina tells her daughter, “ Norma was like my mother “. The other character in the film is Alexia, a teenager who only dreams of car racing and trains in her room with a simulator behind a steering wheel and facing a giant screen, headphones on. Massive figure, cap screwed backwards on her head, she helps her mother around the house willy-nilly, while dreaming of going to the capital to train.
Along with the two women there are also cats, chickens, a black lamb who watches television in the evening at the vigil in Justina’s arms, a bottle-fed piglet… A small world that clashes in the somewhat stiff atmosphere of the house, filmed in static shots which make the frame even heavier. A building which is taking in water from all sides and whose walls reveal worrying cracks. How to maintain this castle? Of the’estancia of yesteryear, there are only a few cows left which Justina finds difficult to part with. How to pay for renovations with a meager domestic worker’s pension? The accounts are quickly made… The family of the former boss, who sometimes invites themselves to the family home for weekends, suggests turning it into an inn. Justina hesitates…
This film, between documentary and fiction (the director suggests situations), already awarded by the Industria WIP Latam co-production forums of the San Sebastian festival, is also a mirror of class relations in Argentina. Martin Benchimol says that when he saw this castle for the first time, while scouting for another film, and Justina – who is of indigenous origin – it did not occur to him that she could be the owner of the estancia. It didn’t “fit” with the decor. The director accompanied the mother and daughter for years and filmed for several months. Beyond the story of this cumbersome inheritance, it also tells the special bond and tenderness that unites mother and daughter. This castle-labyrinth is an island in the middle of nowhere where cell phones are the link with the outside world, and sometimes even between Justina and her mother, from one room to another! Two generations and two life paths symbolized by Alexia’s anger when the boss’s family comes over for the weekend: “ You are no longer their maid ! » she says to her mother.
O Cornoby Jaione Camborda, Gold concha
The official selection jury, chaired by Claire Denis, awarded the festival’s golden shell to the film O Corno by the Basque Jaione Camborda, a Spanish-Portuguese production. For her second feature film, she becomes the first Spanish director to win this prize, for a film which also has dialogue in Galician and not in Castilian. O Corno tells the story of a midwife, who becomes an abortionist to help a teenage girl, in rural Galicia in the early 1970s. The title, O Corno, refers to ergot, also called rye horn, well known in the countryside to cause miscarriages. Franco is still in this world, the weight of the church and taboos too. The film, starring dancer Janet Novas, caused a sensation during the festival due in particular to the opening scene, a very strong childbirth scene which caused a spectator to feel uneasy. An equally strong choice on the part of the jury and to which the personality of Claire Denis is undoubtedly no stranger.
Highly rewarded Argentine cinema
Argentine cinema, which is experiencing times of concern with the threats weighing on cultural institutions from the favorite in the polls for the next presidential election, had sent a large delegation to San Sebastian. Besides the price Latino horizonshe leaves with a deserved Interpretation Prize for Marcelo Subiotto – as a philosophy professor in a university again subject to the budgetary vagaries of the times – in the film Puan by Maria Alshé and Benjamin Naishtat, which also won the prize for Best Screenplay, in official selection.
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And in the very competitive and ambitious section of Tabakalera Zabaltegui, a double blow with The human trough 3 by Eduardo Williams and The juice, long-form documentary by Ulises de la Orden on the 1985 trial of the military junta. In the history of Argentina, there was a before and after trial, says the director. An archive film – 500 hours of archives viewed – but with a very strong point of view on the abuses committed, which resonates strangely in these present times where incomprehensible nostalgia arises.