Willem Dafoe (Appleton, 1955), the star guest of the edition of the BCN Film Fest that kicks off this Thursday at Cinemes Verdi, attends the group of journalists with a warm smile that illuminates his angular and expressive face, one of the most fascinating in world cinema. The Host, the film by Miguel Ángel Jiménez that he presents at the festival, is a Catalan co-production with an international cast filmed in Greece in which the American actor plays a powerful Greek magnate with shady dealings who, in the mid-70s, gathers family and friends on his private island to lavishly celebrate his daughter's birthday and plan her future, whether she wants it or not. “The problem with wanting to control everything is that it ends up destroying everything you love – the actor points out. He always thinks about his past, surely because he has humble origins. But what defines him is, above all, power and the loss of his son”.

Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini (Rome, 1957) explains that for nearly three decades he has pursued the project of adapting the story of Ulysses for the big screen after his return to Ithaca. This journey began to materialize in 2011, when Pasolini sought out British actor Ralph Fiennes (Ipswich, 1962) to play Ulysses in a way we've rarely seen on film: a man traumatized by all the violence he's seen and inflicted, unable to take control of his own. The return It is the story of a hero who returns to a home that no longer feels like his own and who will need time to rebuild ties with his loved ones, especially Penelope (Juliette Binoche) and his son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer). "I wanted to reflect the emotional journey of a family broken by war, and after a terrible experience." Ancient Greece, but according to the director it is a direct bridge to the wars of today: "I would love for Putin to see it and realize how war conflicts change towns and people." The film premiered at the BCN Film Fest, which awarded the festival Conclave, The English patient and Spider, in addition to playing Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Fiennes meets with a group of journalists at the Hotel Casa Fuster in Barcelona.

Richard Gere He greeted the group of journalists he was scheduled to meet with this Wednesday at the door of a room in the Hotel Casa Fuster with big smiles and handshakes for everyone, a good sense of humor and a closeness that, he later explained, had a purpose. "If I had been sitting and looking at my phone, the atmosphere of the interview wouldn't have been the same, would it?" he said. "A smile and a greeting change everything. Kindness is the value we all share." It's an attitude that ties in with the Dalai Lama's speech in Wisdom and happiness, the documentary produced by Gere and presented at the BCN Film Fest, which gives voice to the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and, through his words and archive images, tells his personal story and summarizes his philosophy. A simple and accessible homily that repeatedly claims the right of Tibetan culture to exist, a cause that Pretty Woman and American gigolo has embraced for decades

The first thing that surprises about Reading Lolita in Tehran, a drama about a group of women who meet secretly in 1980s Iran to study classics of English literature, is directed by an Israeli filmmaker and financed – in part – by public money from Israel, the same country that a few months ago exchanged missile launches with IranDirector Eran Riklis (Jerusalem, 1954), who is presenting his film at the BCN Film Fest this Saturday before its official premiere on July 20, was aware of the contradiction. "However, I'd already made films about Palestinians and Druze [a religious minority with Muslim roots], and I loved the novel on which the film is based, so I contacted the author via Facebook," he explains. "Of course, the first question was whether it made sense to her that an Israeli seemed like an idea."

It is already known that Hollywood stars have their rhythms and a way of understanding time that relativises even Einstein's theory. Johnny Depp has shown in Barcelona that he is a Hollywood star by arriving 95 minutes late, wearing a clueless smile to his meeting with the press at the BCN Film Fest, where he is the big star of this year's edition. It should not be understood as a gesture of discourtesy, on the contrary: Depp uses the same strategy of temporal restructuring in his press conferences at festivals like Cannes, San Sebastián or the Berlinale. Basically, arriving late is his way of treating the BCN Film Fest with the deference due to a major international festival. What a humiliation if he had shown up on time! This was also understood by the press who, at the end of the event, started asking the actor for autographs and selfies.