San Sebastián blesses 'Sundays' with the Golden Shell

Special Envoy to San SebastiánTriumph of Sundays at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The Golden Shell awarded to the film by the jury recognizes one of the best filmmakers of the generation of female directors that has emerged in recent years, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Barakaldo, 1978), who aftera beautiful debut with Five little wolves and of the acclaimed series Fly sign in Sundays her most ambitious and complex work. The film is a drama about the impact on a Basque family of their teenage daughter's decision to enter a cloistered convent after high school.

This Catalan co-production, which also won the Zinemira Basque Film Award, was a favorite at the Concha de Oro from its first screening. Sundays Not only was it applauded, but it also sparked much subsequent debate, especially due to the ambiguity with which it addresses the debate it raises about individual freedom and religious indoctrination, without presenting a univocal position on the issue or easily digestible dramatic solutions. On the contrary, at times it is an uncomfortable film, but that also makes it more interesting and daring, because it renounces the ideological and affective identification that too often orbits the discourse of social cinema. "If I love cinema, it's because it always teaches me that you can try to understand what is different from you," said the director upon receiving the award. "And I don't think that trying to understand something means validating or legitimizing it. But we live in a world where there are always people who are different from you, and cinema is worth being a...

The award also recognizes the exquisite acting work of the protagonists, especially a fabulous Patricia López Arnaiz in the role of the aunt who tries to counterbalance the religious influence of her niece, the debutante Blanca Soroa. The sober direction and balanced and precise writing make Sundays A more than worthy Golden Shell. It's a shame that the verdict is, in part, tainted by a decision that has proven to be ill-advised on the part of the festival: inviting Bayona to preside over the jury of a section in which the producer of one of the films, precisely Sundays, is Sandra Hermida, production director of the first three films by the director of Impossible and producer of the last two. It's true that the world of Spanish cinema is small, but the presence of such a close collaborator of the filmmaker casts an unnecessary shadow of doubt over the Golden Shell.

The one of Sundays It is, by the way, the third consecutive Golden Shell that a Spanish production has won in San Sebastián, after Afternoons of solitude (2024) and The horn (2023). This is good news for Spanish cinema, which is undoubtedly enjoying a great moment, but perhaps not so good for the festival, which highlights its difficulties in recent years in attracting competitive, quality international titles due to the dominance of Venice and Cannes on the festival circuit.

Recognition for José Luis Guerín

The rest of the San Sebastian awards list echoed the vitality and diversity of Spanish cinema, starting with the best work seen at the festival: the documentary Stories from the good valley, of José Luis Guerín, which has won the special jury prize, the second most important and, coincidentally, the same one that the Barcelona director won twenty-four years ago for Under constructionThere are many connections between that documentary about the transformations of the Raval and the extraordinary portrait he has now directed of the Barcelona neighborhood of Vallbona. Filmed over two and a half years, Stories from the Good Valley It is a work that gives a voice to the residents to explore the neighborhood's past, present, and future, as well as a poem about the urban peripheries that manages to be both popular and transcendent. Upon receiving the award, Guerín recalled that Bayona is from La Trinidad, a neighborhood neighboring Vallbona ("He knows the material I've dealt with well, therefore"). And he dedicated the award to the residents of Vallbona "because, although they don't know it, they are the scriptwriters of the film, and even the directors."

The third most valued work in the list of winners is Six jours ce printemps-là, which follows a divorced mother and her two children on an impromptu vacation they secretly spend at her paternal grandparents' house on the French Riviera with the mother's new partner. Small, sensitive, and unfazed by naturalism, it's one of the best films by Belgian director Joachim Lafosse, a regular director at San Sebastián whom several collaborators accused last year of engaging in toxic behavior on set. Six jours ce printemps-là, the first film presented at a festival since the controversy, has taken home a good harvest of awards in San Sebastián: best direction and best screenplay.

As for the acting awards, which in San Sebastián are not separated by gender, the jury opted to distribute ex aequo Best Leading Performance Among the Lead Actors in a Drama About a Gay Grandpa Who Comes Back in the Closet Maspalomas (the popular Basque television and theater actor José Ramón Soroiz) and the protagonist of the Chinese Her heart beats in its cage (Xiaohong Zhao, who plays in the film her own true story of reuniting with her son after spending ten years in prison for the death of her husband). And not to let any Spanish title go without an award at San Sebastián, the prize for best photography went to Pau Esteve for The tigers, the vibrant thriller by Alberto Rodriguez.