• Valencian director Joecar Hanna returns home to meet audiences following his success at Cannes and awards in Toronto and Málaga
• The festival strengthens its ties with the Spanish Film Academy’s Summer Campus through the screening of the Málaga Golden Biznaga winner I Won’t Die of Love

Cinema Jove will premiere, in competition on 22 June, Whispers in May, an anthropological portrait of adolescence in rural China directed by Dongnan Chen.

This vivid and immersive work, which arrives endorsed by the award for Best Film at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), explores the weight of tradition and the complexities of coming of age in the rural heartland of the Asian giant.

Although the director draws on a classic coming-of-age structure in both the film’s formal approach and the aspirations of its characters, its distinctive and disruptive quality lies in the convergence of improvised fiction and ethnographic documentary.

As Chen herself has revealed, the feature originated from her connection with the often-overlooked realities of girls living in the Liangshan region: “When I first travelled there, I wasn’t planning to make a film until a teacher showed me some writings by her students. One sentence in particular stayed with me: ‘I have made many wishes, but none of them have come true.’”

Later that same day, she met the girl who had written those words. Like many children in the area, her life was shaped by the absence of her parents, who worked hundreds of kilometres away. At the age of fourteen, the world seemed ready to define her as a woman, a wife and a migrant worker “before she could choose her own path”.

Set among the rugged landscapes of this prefecture in Sichuan Province, the film grew out of a close process of collaboration and improvisation with local girls. Together with the director, they imagined a space “where they could simply be themselves in all their joys and sorrows, free from judgement, labels and expectations”.

The Emotional and Professional Homecoming of Joecar Hanna

On 22 June, Cinema Jove will also celebrate the homecoming of one of the most internationally promising Valencian filmmakers of recent years: director and screenwriter Joecar Hanna.

His return coincides with the first anniversary of the world premiere of his 20-minute film Talk Me at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, the short won the Best International Short Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Silver Biznaga for Best Fiction Short Film at the Málaga Film Festival.

Despite completing a meteoric international festival run, the filmmaker of Chinese and Lebanese descent has not yet had the opportunity to share Talk Me in person with Spanish audiences, lending this event particular professional and emotional significance.

Hanna will present both his acclaimed short film and his debut work Deliver Me in Sala 7. The latter serves as the basis for his first feature film, which is scheduled to begin shooting in New York later this year.

Following the screening of both works, Cinema Jove director María Albiñana will lead an open discussion with the filmmaker.

It is also worth noting that Hanna is currently taking part in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Foundation Residence, a screenwriting development programme that awards fellowships to only twelve filmmakers worldwide each year. This places him in the lineage of internationally renowned directors such as Lucrecia Martel, Lukas Dhont and Carla Simón.

Partnerships with the Spanish Film Academy

As part of its commitment to fostering connections within the film industry, Cinema Jove is joining forces this year with the Spanish Film Academy’s Summer Campus, a training and discussion initiative co-organised with Netflix and held in Valencia since 2023 with the support of the City Council.

Taking advantage of the overlap between both events, a joint programme has been organised featuring a screening and the live recording of a podcast.

The Valencian Film Archive will host a screening tomorrow of Marta Matute’s debut feature “Yo no moriré de amor” which won the Golden Biznaga for Best Film at the latest Málaga Film Festival, as well as Silver Biznagas for Best Actress (Júlia Mascort) and Best Supporting Actor (Tomás del Estal), in addition to the Feroz Puerta Oscura Award from the specialised press.

Featuring a cast that also includes Alicante-born actress Sonia Almarcha, the film draws inspiration from Matute’s own experiences caring for her mother, who suffered from a degenerative illness, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven.

Following the screening, Matute will take part in a discussion moderated by Fernando Méndez Leite, President of the Spanish Film Academy.

The institutional partnership will conclude on 26 June at Fnac with the live recording of a special episode of the Observatory for Diversity in Audiovisual Media (ODA) podcast, entitled Podcast ODA: ¡Corten! Descodificando la ficción.

Hosted by Jorge Gonzalo (ODA) and Jesús Blanquiño (Podium Podcast), and featuring actresses Patty Bonet and Celia Morán, the event will explore the representation of non-normative bodies in contemporary fictional narratives.