When director Marta Matute (Madrid, 1988) was 18 years old, her mother was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. For nine years, the whole family dedicated themselves to caring for their mother, and that degenerative disease became the center of their lives. For all practical purposes, Matute stopped being a normal girl her age. “I wanted to be with my friends, live my life, but the illness destroyed everything – she recalls –. In a way, you continue with your life, but dissociated.” Matute didn't talk to her friends about the situation and even hid it, but she already suspected that sooner or later she would end up “doing something” with that experience. And so it has been: I Will Not Die of Love, her opera prima, which arrives in cinemas this Friday after triumphing at the Malaga Festival with three awards (Golden Biznaga for best film, best actress, and best supporting actor) that position it as the first major surprise of Spanish cinema in 2026.

The Malaga Film Festival continues to be a good time for Catalan cinema, which once again dominates the awards list by a landslide. Catalan productions Deaf, The Turtles, The fury and Very far They take a good part of the awards in the official section, and the film Breakfast with me, by playwright Ivan Morales, has swept the Zonacine section. The Golden Bisnaga for best film has gone to Deaf, directed by Eva Libertad, which also took home the Audience Award; in addition, the film's two leads, Murcia's Miriam Garlo and Barcelona's Álvaro Cervantes, won the awards for Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively. In Garlo's case, she shared the award with Ángela Cervantes, for The fury. A big party at Can Cervantes, then. The men's category has also been ex aequo, because in addition to the role of Álvaro Cervantes in Deaf has recognized Mario Casas in Very far, his first film in Catalan.