• Brazilian ‘Domingo’ and Chinese ‘A First Farewell’ are the two feature films screened today as part of the Official Section

Cinema Jove opens its third day with the presentation of two new competing feature films, ‘A First Farewell’, by Chinese director Lina Wang, and Brazilian ‘Domingo’, by Clara Linhart and Fellipe Barbosa.

At 11:30am, ‘A First Farewell’ will be screened at La Filmoteca. The anthropologic drama, by Chinese director Lina Wang, is a poetic piece dedicated to her birth town of Shaya: “I was lucky to be born in Shaya, Xinjiang, by the Tarim basin of the Taklamakan desert. It is the inspiration for my film. I have navigated in the Tarim river with wooden raft, heard the jingling of the camel bells and the whisper of thousand-year-old trees, experiences that you couldn’t imagine…,” stated Lina Wang.

Much as the starring children characters, the producer was born in Xinjiang, in north west China where, surrounded by cotton fields and desert, the Ligurian village is located. This initiation drama reflects the challenges that a Muslim minority face in an environment where economic survival is complex if Mandarin is not spoken.

With its sublime photography, the feature film was awarded the Crystal Bear at the KPlus Generation of the Berlinale and the Future of Asia at the Tokyo Festival.

During the afternoon, at 6.00pm, ‘Domingo’ will be screened. The Brazilian film by Clara Linhart and Fellipe Barbosa travels temporarily to January 1st, 2003, in the midst of the celebration of the investiture of President Lula. The changes promised by the new Head of the State generate both enthusiasm and worry among the members of two families in Rio Grande do Sul, gathered together in an old house. Adolescents and adults live through emotional turmoil where love and sexual disarray take place during the preparations of a quinceañera celebration.

“This film recalls both ‘La ciénaga,’ by Lucrecia Martel, due to the stifling heat and asphyxiating atmosphere of confinement, and ‘The rules of the game,’ by Jean Renoir, because of the interrelation of social classes under the same roof,” considers Carlos Madrid.

The Young Coen Brothers and ‘La noche más corta’

Today the cycle ‘The Yong Coens’ opens at 10.30pm at the Centre del Carme de Cultura Contemporània, with ‘Blood Simple’ (1984). Cinema Jove dedicates a retrospective to the early years of the most prolific and original filmmaking duo, brothers Joel (1954) and Ethan Coen (1957), who have won four Oscars, two BAFTA, a Golden Globe and three Best Director Awards at Cannes, among other awards.

At 8.00pm at la Filmoteca, ‘La noche más corta’ will be celebrated. In it, we will be able to enjoy some of the best short films of Spanish film history, all of which have been selected for the Academy Awards in recent years. The screening includes work by renown filmmakers, such as Nacho Vigalondo, Javier Fesser, Borja Cobeaga, Juanjo Giménez and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who, throughout their career, have alternated between feature films and short films. In addition, this session will incorporate the presentation of the 5th edition of ‘Curt Creixent, short film encounter’, that takes place during the festival from the 24th to the 26th of June.

The Short Film Official Section will continue its screenings at Teatro Rialto and the second day dedicated to Web Series will take place at the Centre Octubre de Cultura Contemporània with screenings, round tables, information capsules and open encounters with creators.

At the Sala 7 in Rialto the screenings of cycle ‘The Gods of Anime’ will take place, with two new films: ‘Hiroshima’ (Mori Masaki, 1983), a drama based on the homonymous manga series by artist and animator Keiji Nakazawa, who survived the bombing; and ‘The Tale of Princess Kaguya’ (2015), an artistic masterpiece by Isao Takahata, based on the traditional Japanes story ‘The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’. This film was nominated to the Oscar Awards as Best Animated Film in 2013.