10th Sevilla European Film Festival

The program of the SEFF had two main sections: First, presenting the best from the recent European art film festivals to the large and curious domestic audience and, second, pushing forward the new young talent coming out of Spanish cinema to European professionals during numerous panels and seminars.

The first strand is admittedly not original, but definitely useful: winners and interesting echoes from this year’s Berlinale, Cannes, Venice and Locarno in the main competition including; The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) by Paolo Sorrentino, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Epizoda u zivot beraca zelaza, Dir: Danis Tanovic), Jimmy P. by Arnaud Depleschin, Camille Claudel 1915 by Bruno Dumont, Stray Dogs by Tsai Ming Liang and this year’s winner of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Notebook, by Hungarian Janos Szász. The winner of the SEFF main competition was the art house hit L Inconnu du Lac by Alain Guirodie. Claude Lanzmann presented his latest opus Le Dernier des injustes and was decorated by the festival with an honorary prize for his lifework.

Seville is a cultural, informal event and even the main competition was composed out of filmmakers of a younger generation and definitely of a young spirit. Slovak Mira Fornay, the winner from Rotterdam, Portuguese actor Carlotto Cotta or director Manuel Martin Cuenca, the winner from San Sebastian, being just two examples.

Two important sections showcased newcomers to the European scene: The competition program Nuevas Holas (New Waves) contained both documentary and fiction films. The Golden Guiraldillo went to the excellent and sensible Spanish experiment The Inner Jungle (La jungle interior), a film taking the form of a diary tracing a fear of love by the hero/author  (played by Juan Barrero) during the pregnancy of his wife. The poetic and fascinating Coast of the Death (Costa del muerte) was praised as the best documentary after its success in Locarno.

The new, small but promising, section The Resistances (Resistencias) presented for the first time excellent young Spanish talent, borne out of the  economical crisis, that paradoxically  gave a push to the inventive and responsible creativity of filmmakers who dare to stay away from the commercial pressures of film production in difficult times (see accompanying articles).

SEFF is definitely a good festival to visit for all professionals who appreciate the high level taste of its programmers, the simple but generous hospitality, good organization and a perfect overview on new trends, staged in screening halls full of enthusiastic, curious and mainly very young audiences. (Tereza Brdecková)

Sevilla European Film Festival: www.festivalcinesevilla.eu