• Sandra Cervera and Juanjo Pardo will host an opening ceremony conceived as a musical, participatory show with nods to the 1980s
• Director Julia Thelin makes her feature-film debut with a satire on appearances, power and social inequalities in Northern Europe

Cinema Jove, the International Film Festival of the Valencian Community organised by the Regional Ministry of Education, Culture and Universities and promoted by the Valencian Institute of Culture (IVC), will inaugurate its 41st edition tomorrow, 19 June, with a musical, participatory and multilingual gala, followed by the screening of the Swedish film The Patron, the debut feature by director Julia Thelin.

The opening ceremony will be hosted by actors Sandra Cervera and Juanjo Pardo and will once again feature the creative team formed by Jaime Pujol, Mamen Mengo and Víctor Lucas, responsible for the script, stage direction and musical direction, respectively.

“It will be an elegant, multilingual, musical gala with a punk edge,” said Cinema Jove director María Albiñana.

The opening event will embrace a trilingual format, alternating between Spanish, Valencian and English to reflect the festival’s international scope. On stage, the presenters will be joined by a three-piece band that will actively participate throughout the ceremony.

According to gala director Jaime Pujol, the event has been conceived as “a show in which information about the festival is integrated into a narrative full of humour, cinematic references and live performances.”

The stage production will also have a strong 1980s aesthetic, paying tribute to the decade in which Cinema Jove was founded. This atmosphere will be enhanced by a series of audiovisual projections displayed across the three screens installed on stage.

Audience participation will be another central element of the ceremony. From the outset, a symbolic empty cinema seat waiting to be occupied will be introduced, an idea that will reappear at the festival’s closing ceremony on 27 June to remind audiences that the international festival is built around those who attend its screenings, meetings and activities.

During the gala, the Luna de València Award will be presented to film and television creator Félix Sabroso, a screenwriter and director who perfectly embodies the harmonious coexistence of genres and media, much like Cinema Jove’s own programme.

Social Satire in the Art World

Following the gala, audiences will be able to watch The Patron, the debut feature by Swedish director Julia Thelin. The social satire combines the conventions of a thriller with a critical examination of the art world and the class structures of Nordic societies.

“The idea for this feature came to me one day when I wondered what would happen if I lied without worrying about the consequences and explored all the possibilities that would suddenly open up,” explains Julia Thelin, who will attend the opening ceremony alongside the film’s lead actress, Carla Sehn.

The Patron follows a cleaner who longs for a more exciting life. One night, she decides to pose as an influential art patron and lures two young students into her employer’s luxurious empty home. What begins as an apparently harmless game gradually spirals into a dangerous web of deception, ambition and abuse of power.

With a sharp and biting tone, Thelin’s debut explores appearances, identity and social inequality through a triangle of characters centred on a female protagonist who constantly shifts between reality and fiction.

The director adds that The Patron “is not a moralising film” and that her intention is for audiences to leave the cinema asking themselves “who has really gained what in the end.”

Born in Stockholm, Julia Thelin has established herself as one of the emerging voices of Swedish cinema. Her short films Push It (2017) and Tweener (2018) were selected for some of the world’s leading international film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto and the Berlinale. She has also twice been a resident of a programme linked to the legacy of Ingmar Bergman.