19 Spanish feature films will be showcased in Made in Spain, the non-competitive section of the 71st San Sebastian Festival running from September 22-30, 2023.
Álvaro Longoria, the Goya-winning director and producer of the documentary Sons of the Cloud, the Last Colony (Hijos de las nubes, la última colonia), will close the section with the world premiere of La vida de Brianeitor, about an adolescent whose physical disability has done nothing to stop him from becoming one of today’s greatest gamers.
Other films include the world premiere of Juan Francisco Viruega’s feature debut Amanece, which narrates the ordeals of two sisters as they accompany their sick mother in the last days of her life; Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez’s Perplexed Ants (Hormigas perplejas), depicting a human landscape of men and women workers as they try to prevent the fall of their industry; and Seed of Son (Semilla del son), a documentary by Juanma Betancorton featuring the former frontman of Radio Futura, known today with the nickname Juan Perro and an eminent musicologist, stars in this mellifluous road movie on the road to Afro-Caribbean beats in the company of a fine cast of Cuban performers.
LA VIDA DE BRIANEITOR
ÁLVARO LONGORIA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Only able to move two fingers of his hands due to having been born with degenerative muscular atrophy, Brian has become a global phenomenon thanks to social media, where he is the gamer and streamer of the moment. He has millions of followers who watch his every step and has recently made his big screen debut in the film Campeonex, with Javier Fesser. La vida de Brianeitor tells the fascinating story of overcoming the odds and how Brian became Brianeitor2002 despite his physical disability.
AMANECE
JUAN FRANCISCO VIRUEGA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Iria del Río, Aura Garrido, Isabel Ampudia
Alba returns to her hometown after a break-up. There she reunites with her sister Candela. The two will close their childhood wounds and breathe together once again as they accompany their sick mother in her last days, with the desert, the sea and salt as witnesses.
ASEDIO
MIGUEL ÁNGEL VIVAS (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Natalia de Molina, Bella Agossou
For Dani, being Spanish means serving his country as a member of the riot police squad, honouring his flag, enforcing the law. But during an eviction in a troubled area of Madrid, Dani uncovers a corruption ring that will make him fear for his life. His only help will lie in Nasha, a young Nigerian girl he just evicted, and her son Little. He soon realises that the system he works for is not the solution, but may always have been part of the problem.
UNDER THERAPY (BAJO TERAPIA)
GERARDO HERRERO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Malena Alterio, Alexandra Jiménez, Fele Martínez, Antonio Pagudo, Eva Ugarte, Juan Carlos Vellido
Three couples participate in an unusual group therapy session. The psychologist has left them a series of issues that the couples will have to jointly address and analyse. The proposed mechanics prompt them all to give their opinion, argue and finally show themselves as they really are. Humorously, the complication of the participants’ emotional journey will stretch to ususpected limits.
CREATURA
ELENA MARTÍN GIMENO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Elena Martín Gimeno, Oriol Pla, Clara Segura, Alex Brendemühl, Carla Linares, Marc Cartanyà
On moving into a new home with her partner, Mila realises that her loss of desire comes from within herself. She sets out on a journey to revisit the experiences of her childhood and adolescence in the hope of coming to terms with her own body.
THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS (EL FANTÁSTICO CASO DEL GOLEM)
JUAN GONZÁLEZ (SPAIN), FERNANDO MARTÍNEZ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – Estonia
Cast: Brays Efe, Bruna Cusí, Javier Botet, Anna Castillo, Luis Tosar, Roberto Álamo, Nao Albet, Roger Coma, David Menéndez
After a night of partying, David has had too much to drink and falls from a terrace as his friend Juan looks on, impotent. David’s body crashes onto a car bonnet and breaks into a thousand pieces. As nobody appears to be shocked, Juan sets out to see what happened, only to find himself caught up in a maze of contradictions and pianos that fall from the sky…
ELS ENCANTATS
ELENA TRAPÉ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Laia Costa, Aina Clotet, Daniel Pérez Prada, Ainara Elejalde Bel, Pep Cruz
Recently separated, Irene is faced for the first time with the absence of her 4-year-old daughter, who is spending a few days with her father. Unable to adapt to this new reality, she makes her way to her house in a small village in the Catalan Pyrenees in the attempt to regain the control and peace she feels she lost some time ago. But the place, once so familiar to her, slowly becomes as overwhelming as her new life and eventually forces her to stop running and face up to her fears.
HAY UNA PUERTA AHÍ
JUAN PONCE DE LEÓN (URUGUAY), FACUNDO PONCE DE LEÓN (URUGUAY)
Country(ies) of production: Uruguay – Spain
Portrait of the birth of a friendship between two men, while one helps the other to die. The acceptance of pain, the sense of humour and the commitment to family and friends, will accompany the virtual chats between Fernando and Eric, who were unable to meet due to the pandemic.
PERPLEXED ANTS (HORMIGAS PERPLEJAS)
MERCEDES MONCADA RODRÍGUEZ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
As the second industrial revolution winds down, men and women who make ships and airplanes with their hands face the collapse of industry in a small region in southern Europe and at the same time portray the trail of the transformation of production relations in the 21st century.
THE MEMORY OF CINEMA: A FILM ABOUT FERNANDO MÉNDEZ-LEITE (LA MEMORIA DEL CINE: UNA PELÍCULA SOBRE FERNANDO MÉNDEZ-LEITE)
MOISÉS SALAMA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Fernando Méndez-Leite is one of the fundamental people in the History of Spanish Cinema, spanning more than fifty years of culture. His life and memory contain not only the narration of our cinematography, but also of the culture, politics and social changes that have accompanied it. The writing of his memoires and a novel with obvious autobiographical overtones is the moment chosen in this documentary to join him in looking at his biography from his impressive memory.
LA SINGLA
PALOMA ZAPATA GARCÍA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – Germany
Cast: Helena Kaittani, Adelfa Calvo, María Alfonsa Rosso
Deaf since shortly after her birth, Antonia Singla learned to dance without listening to music. At the young age of 17 she revolutionised the flamenco world, only to disappear from the stage before turning 30. Fifty years on, a woman will try to unravel the mystery surrounding her disappearance and find La Singla to hear the first-hand version of her heartbreaking story. The film interweaves past and present, combining archive footage with impassioned music and sound.
THE GIRLS ARE ALRIGHT (LAS CHICAS ESTÁN BIEN)
ITSASO ARANA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Itsaso Arana, Bárbara Lennie, Irene Escolar, Itziar Manero, Helena Ezquerro
A group of girls meet at a country house for a week in summer to rehearse a play. During their time together, they exchange their knowledge of friendship, acting, love, orphanhood and death; with the secret hope that sharing will make them better people. Las chicas están bien (The Girls Are Alright) is a summer tale with princesses, horses, toads, a fire, a fiesta, a river, myriad letters, and even a scatterbrained prince.
MATRIA
ÁLVARO GAGO (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: María Vázquez, Soraya Luaces
Ramona lives in a Galician village bogged down by a tense and unpredictable working and personal situation. Always giving her all for the future of her daughter Estrella, she will be pushed to look inwards and consider that there just may be something else to live for.
WHILE YOU’RE STILL YOU (MIENTRAS SEAS TÚ)
CLAUDIA PINTO EMPERADOR (VENEZUELA)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
After 50 years in theatre, film and television, Carme Elias is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Together with Claudia Pinto, a director and friend, they decide to record her last conscious voyage. The characters played by Carme accompany this difficult period, while the borders between fiction and reality disappear. Mientras seas tú / While You’re Still You is a constant game of mirrors, a pact of love and friendship. A “living” film which will continue to shoot while it screens at the festival, as a powerful invitation to grab the present.
NOTES ON A SUMMER (NOTAS SOBRE UN VERANO)
DIEGO LLORENTE DÍAZ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Katia Borlado, Álvaro Quintana, Antonio Araque, Rocío Suárez
Marta returns to Gijón for the summer holidays from Madrid, where she is setting up home with her boyfriend Leo. In the company of her friend Elena, the pair enjoy the typical summer fun: sunbathing, open-air fiestas. On the beach she runs back into Pablo. The pair arrange to meet for coffee. Their encounters continue until they end up having sex and start seeing each other regularly, to the point of discussing the possibility of getting back together again. Leo comes to Asturias to visit her and Marta decides not to break off with him.
SEED OF THE SON (SEMILLA DEL SON)
JUANMA BETANCORT (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Santiago Auserón
Santiago Auserón has been soaking up the rhythmic wisdom of the Cuban son ever since his first visit to the country in 1984, an influence he transfers to his musical career as a hybrid innovation in the world of rock music. His current project, Juan Perro, is the sound lab in which he synthesizes Cuba, Spain and New Orleans. A voyage starting from Spanish tradition and flying to the Mississippi delta in the shape of the blues, stopping at the son Cubano along the way to finally merge it with the jazz of New Orleans. A mellifluous road movie taking us into the universe of one of the most charismatic figures of post-modern Spanish culture.
SICA
CARLA SUBIRANA (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Thais García Blanco, Núria Prims, Marco Antonio Florido Añón, María Villaverde, Lois Soaxe
Fourteen-year-old Sica is obsessed with the idea of the sea returning her father’s body after a shipwreck on the Costa da Morte, Galicia. While making her way along the cliffs she meets Suso, El Cazatormentas, a strange boy who, like her, is waiting for the arrival of Ofelia, the mother of all storms. Sica investigates the circumstances of the accident, delving into a painful voyage of discovery. In her eyes, the fishing town where she grew up, marked by the brutality of its ocean and the increasing imbalance of nature, will never be the same again.
UNZUÉ. L’ÚLTIM EQUIP DEL JUANCAR
JESÚS MUÑOZ (SPAIN), XAVI TORRES (SPAIN), SANTI PADRÓ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
The story of Juan Carlos Unzué’s daily life during two and a half years, since the former goalkeeper and trainer of Barça went public with his ALS diagnosis in June 2020. Right from day one he decided, on the one hand, to lend visibility to the disease in order to denounce the lack of help for those who suffer from it and, on the other, to organise a big event to raise as much money as possible for research. The documentary exhaustively follows all of the meetings and conversations held with managers of FC Barcelona and Manchester City to arrange a football game that succeeded in raising 4.5 million euros. Meanwhile, Unzué opens the doors to his home and reveals the evolution of his physical degeneration.
UPON ENTRY
ALEJANDRO ROJAS (VENEZUELA), JUAN SEBASTIÁN VÁSQUEZ (VENEZUELA)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Alberto Ammann, Bruna Cusí, Ben Temple, Laura Gómez
Diego, a Venezuelan town planner, and Elena, a contemporary dancer from Barcelona, travel to the United States, with their visas approved, to start a new life. But on coming to the immigration zone of Newark airport, they are taken to the secondary inspection room, where two border protection officers subject them to an inspection and psychologically draining interrogation in the attempt to find out if the couple has anything to hide.