The Special Screenings section of the Seville European Film Festival brings together a selection of works that stand out for the significance of their creators in the contemporary cinematic landscape. Between revealing documentaries, musical comedies, auteur portraits, and immersive experiences, this section offers a journey through the most diverse expressions of European cinema.
From the realm of documentary storytelling, French actress Juliette Binoche, Giraldillo de Honor at this year’s edition, will present in Seville ‘In-I in Motion’, her first feature as writer and director. In this intimate and poetic work, Binoche revisits the stage piece she created with choreographer Akram Khan in 2007.
With the musical comedy ‘Todos los lados de la cama’, Samantha López Speranza directs the new sequel to the successful saga, this time written by Carlos del Hoyo and Irene Bohoyo, revisiting with humor and freshness the romantic entanglements led by Ernesto Alterio and Pilar Castro.
Among the fictions having special screenings in Seville is ‘Rondallas’, a warm ensemble story written and directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, who returns to filmmaking to take us to a small Galician fishing village, starring Javier Gutiérrez, María Vázquez, and Tamar Novas.
Directed and written by the artistic duo Masbedo (Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni), with Giorgio Vasta collaborating on the script, ‘Arsa’ —premiered at the Rome Film Festival— is a visual fable about a young woman living on an island-turned-nature-reserve, who transforms the debris washed ashore into sculptures.
Carlos Larrazabal directs and co-writes with Fabián Suárez ‘Malecón’, a drama starring César Domínguez, Camila Rodhes, and Omar Rolando, about love, guilt, and redemption in contemporary Cuba, depicting with both rawness and tenderness the impossible dream of escaping the island.
Non-fiction also takes the spotlight in ‘El último arrebato’, a documentary directed by Marta Medina and Enrique López Lavigne, and written by Medina with Jaime Chávarri. The film revisits the figure of Iván Zulueta and his cult masterpiece ‘Arrebato’ (1980), exploring the light and darkness behind a work that marked the history of Spanish cinema.
Meanwhile, Galician filmmaker Brais Revaldería, winner of two Emmy Awards and a Cannes Lions Grand Prix, presents ‘Fillos do vento: A rapa’, a groundbreaking cinematic experience that, for the first time in the festival’s history, offers an immersive 270º projection. The piece transports viewers into the heart of the Rapa das Bestas ritual from the newly inaugurated immersive hall at Seville’s Cartuja Center CITE.
Alongside these works, Special Screenings will also showcase previously announced Andalusian productions, including the horror thriller ‘La casa en el árbol’, written and directed by Luis Calderón; and documentaries such as ‘Fandango’, directed by Remedios Malvárez Báez and Arturo Andújar, written by Malvárez and Miguel Ángel Parra; ‘Lorca en la Habana’, by José Antonio Torres-Márquez and Antonio Manuel; ‘Velintonia 3’, by Javier Vila, co-written with Leticia Salvago; ‘Luis Gordillo. Manual de instrucciones’, by Sema D’Acosta and Antonio García Jiménez; ‘La muralla de los prisioneros’, by José Luis Tirado; ‘El gigante mudo’, by Francisco Campos; and ‘Pendaripen, la historia silenciada del pueblo gitano’, directed by Alfonso Sánchez with a screenplay by Eva Montoya.
