Seville European Film Festival 2022: Best prices, 5 takeaways

Reinforcing its letters of nobility in the international race for the Oscars for feature films this year when it represents France, Alice Diop’s film “Saint Omerbeat Belgium’s Oscar entry ‘Close’ for top honors, the Giraldillo de Oro, on a lively night Seville European Film Festival.

A timely celebration of European arthouse – the fall in arthouse attendance was the main talking point of the festival – Seville’s top awards highlighted the wide variety of tones and issues of current European cinema.

“Saint Omer”, Variety noted in a Venice review, is “a quietly momentous French courtroom drama that subtly but radically rewrites the rules of the game”.

Lukas Dhont’s second feature, ‘Close’, shared the Seville Jury Prize with João Pedro Rodrigues’ ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’. The two films couldn’t be more different in tone, with “Close” weighing like “a deeply felt portrait of two inseparable friendswhile “Will-o’-the-Wisp is, for Variety, an extravaganza of a musical romance that”mixes anti-royalist politics, climate change apocalypse and horny firefighter fetish”.

The awards follow buzz for Charlotte Well’s “Aftersun” topping the New Wave tier. A “sensual and moving beginningspicked up at Cannes by A24 and nominated for 16 BIFA awards last week, it seems destined for significant box office success and awards.

The main applause of the Andalusian program went to the doc “Como ardilla en el agua”, a first film directed by Mayte Gomez Molina and her mother Mayte Molina Romero.

The awards crowned the 2022 Seville European Film Festival. A 9-day event that saw 222 films screened, the majority, 60%, making their Spanish or world premiere in Seville, an impressive tally.

With a varied program and a Merci distribution forum alongside the festival, there was a lot to consider. Five takeaways:

Defending regional talents, a triumph

Any region without a thriving film industry is a loss to cultural diversity. Well attended, the Andalusian program has shown that there is most certainly a demand to take into account the different voices of any community or place.

Winner of the “Como ardilla en el agua” prize, she balances the experimental and the intimate with aplomb. Director Ana Puentes shows promise in her skin-tight short “My Life At The Beginning.” And Helm vet Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo and Pedro G. Romero conjure up rambling magic with “Sietes Jereles.”

Cinema needs more column inches

At Merci, a Film Visibility in the Media session took on a somber tone as many expressed frustration at a reduction in film coverage in the press. That’s true of major publications that movie critics have discounted. But the challenge is not limited to criticism, said Avalon CEO Stefan Schmitz, producer of “Alcarràs”, Spain’s Oscar nominee. Variety: Ttwo levers of communication are needed here, one “to convince the older public that it is not dangerous to go to the cinema” and the other to persuade “the younger public to come and learn that cinemas cinema offer something they cannot have at home”.

“Without a continued focus on watching movies in the cinema, [chances of it] becoming a regular hobby for the number of people who once felt thin,” Schmitz said.

Cinema audiences are still rebounding weak

David Rodriguez, Comscore’s managing director for Spain and Portugal, presented interim figures for 2022 showing that audiences in Spain could end 2022 down 37% from the 2015-2019 average. The latest data, for October 2022 compared to 2019, gave an unfavorable reading, with Spain down 40%, compared to France and the UK at 28%, and Germany at 31%. %.

attract them

There was inspiration to assist exhibitors with presentations from the Queen’s Film Theater in Belfast and the Cinema Galeries in Brussels. QFT talked about a system where memberships can be attached to a specific baby, but any caregiver can attend. The Cinema Galleries have had success expanding into art associated with filmmakers. They collaborated with David Lynch on an exhibition of his paintings, and Jim Jarmusch with a curated assortment of what inspires his films; it covered poetry, photography, music and art. The marketing copy for the Jarmusch season shows seduction in practice: “This exhibition can only be thought of as a back and forth between the film and the exhibition. All his films will be screened at Cinéma Galeries. In the same building, we can pass from one state (the film) to another (the image-plane) to play better at surprising ourselves.

If you want mainstream, you need Arthouse

At least that’s what Schmitz says: “Our business consists of discovering talent, working with new directors, launching careers as filmmakers. And platforms need this phase of content development. They need us as a breeding ground, and they need us as a brand establishment. Because if you want mainstream, you have to have artists, if you don’t have art house, mainstream dies. Talent needs to be nurtured, and independent films have a history of nurturing the next generation of filmmakers for big-budget films.

SEVILLE EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL 2022

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Official competition

Golden Giraldillo: “Saint Omer” (Alice Diop, France)

Grand Jury Prize: “Close” (Lukas Dhont, Belgium, Netherlands, France) and “Will-o’-the-Wisp” (João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, France)

Best Director: “Scarlet” (Pietro Marcello, France, Italy, Germany)

Best actor: Eden Dabrine, (“Close”)

Best Actress: Julie Ledru (“Rodeo”, Lola Quivoron, France) and Zar Amir Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider”, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France)

Script: Alice Diop, Amrita David, Marie Ndiaye (“Saint Omer”)

Editing : Géraldine Mangenot (“Other people’s children”, Rebecca Zlowtowski, France)

Cinematography: Mauro Herce (“Matadero”, Santiago Fillol, Argentina, France, Spain)

new waves

Best film : Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, UK, US)

Best Documentary: Viagem ao Sol (Susana de Sousa Dias, Ansgar Schaefer, Portugal)

Special mention: In Noiva (Sergio Tréfaut, Portugal)

Andalusian panorama

Best film : Como ardilla en el agua (Mayte Gómez Molina and Mayte Molina Romero, Spain)

Rosario Valpuesta Award, Best Short Film: Mothertruckers (Paula Romero, Spain, UK)

Rosario Valpuesta Prize, Technical Art: Menudo viaje. El sueño torcido del arte contemporáneo (María Cañas, Spain)

endless revolutions

Best film : Afterwater (Dane Komlijen, Germany, Spain, Serbia, South Korea)

Extraordinary stories

Audience Award: Blue Jean (Georgia Oakley, UK)

EFA selection

Audience Grand Prize: Tori and Lokita (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium)

OTHER PRIZES

AC/E Prize (Spanish Cultural Action), Best Spanish Achievement: Carlos Pardo Ros (“H”, Spain)

Best director, first/second European feature film: Nikola Spasic (Christina, Serbia)

Future Moviegoers Award: Rodeo (Lola Quivoron, France)

Europe Junior Prize: Las vacaciones de Yoko (Juanjo Elordi, Spain)

Asecan Award, Best Film, Official Selection: Siete Jereles (Pedro G. Romero, Gonzalo García-Pelayo, Spain)

Ocaña Freedom Award: Skin Deep (Alex Schaad, Germany)

AAMMA Women in Focus Awards: Blue Jean (Georgia Oakley, UK)

XV European Prize, Film Script, University of Seville, Fiction: In Recuerdo by Lupi (Silvia Mares García, Spain)

XV European Prize, Film Script, University of Seville, Non-Fiction: Erosion (Jesús Minchón Rodicio, Spain)