The 38th edition of Cinema Jove will have a new official section dedicated to new languages and experimental narratives. The films selected for this year’s edition will be screened at the Teatro Rialto between 24 and 27 June and will compete for a new prize of 2,500 euros.

This new section includes four Valencian feature films in its first edition, although the intention is to broaden the focus to the international panorama from next year onwards.

“We cannot miss the opportunity to dedicate a section to the most daring proposals; those audiovisual productions that, either because of their subject matter or their aesthetic approach, move away from conventional narratives,” explains Carlos Madrid, Cinema Jove director. These are types of cinema that have a specific artistic intention and sometimes a very specific audience, so they deserve their own space in the programme”.

Among the selected titles are two international premieres. One of them is ‘Sóc filla de ma mare’ (2023), directed by Laura García Pérez. An intimate film that reflects on one’s own identity through the reconstruction of memories by means of testimonies and family home videos.

Cinema Jove will also be the platform for the international presentation of ‘Bull Run’, an unconventional film by Ana Ramón Rubio, whose background is bitcoin fever. The director reflects on her personal experience in cryptocurrency trading and the addiction to this world that she acquired during the pandemic. Her husband wants her to go to therapy, and Ana decides to “metabolise” her problem by making this film.

Sóc vertical, però m’agradaria ser horizontal’ is an unclassifiable film in which María Antón Gabot proposes an impossible encounter between Belén Esteban and Sylvia Plath in Benidorm. The film is based on the premise that the American poet chooses the popular city of Alicante as her honeymoon destination in 1956. After an argument with her husband, she goes for a walk; the sun is beating down hard and she suffers from sunstroke. Confused, she travels back in time to 2022. While wandering through the future, she stumbles upon the Spanish TV celebrity, with whom she strikes up a great friendship.

The fourth film in the ‘Òrbites’ section is ‘València, t’estime’ (2023), by Carlos Giménez. This is the first feature film that narrates the LGTBI history of the city of Valencia from the 1970s to the early 2000s. An interesting analysis of the political and activist struggle of this collective, as well as the cultural impact it had on the cap i casal.