At 40 years old and with only two feature films under her belt, Jaione Camborda is consecrated with the Golden Shell received for ‘O corno’, the first that a Spanish director receives in the history of the festival. A story set on the border between Galicia and Portugal in 1971, which addresses issues such as sisterhood and motherhood and which adds the name of this San Sebastian native who has lived in Santiago de Compostela for fifteen years to the long list of directors who are turning things upside down. Spanish cinema. It is not for nothing that the producer of the film is María Zamora, the same one who produced ‘Verano 1993’ and ‘Alcarràs’, by Carla Simón, and who has opened the doors to a generation of filmmakers such as Clara Roquet, Mar Coll and Nelly Reguera .
‘O corno’ takes its title in Galician from ergot, used since time immemorial by healers and midwives to cause abortions and premature births. Its protagonist, played by contemporary dancer Janet Novás, is a shellfish harvester and midwife, who also knows how to terminate pregnancies. The death of a girl who sought her services forces her to flee along the route used by smugglers, crossing the Miño to Portugal. On her way she will meet a black prostitute with a baby.
Spoken in Galician and Portuguese, ‘O corno’ is a film of silences and slow tempo. The initial birth, in which not a drop of blood is seen, is already a declaration of intentions. Almost twenty minutes with a woman standing, moaning and suffering, helped by the protagonist. The director is not so interested in the political and repressive context of the time, almost always out of shot, but rather in the face and hands of a woman trying to be free. Trained at the film schools in Munich and Prague, Jaione Camborda (San Sebastián, 1983) debuted in 2019 with ‘Arima’, an enigmatic film set in rural Galicia that won awards but was barely seen in theaters (1,200 viewers). ‘O Corno’, premiered in Toronto before San Sebastián and developed at the Ikusmira Berriak del Zinemaldi and Tabakalera residences, was born, in her words, “from a need to explore as a woman the animal capacity we have to give birth.” Camborda thanked her partner for taking care of her few-month-old children when she was filming. “I would like to share this award with all the filmmakers who are yet to come and who will be references for the following ones,” she said when collecting the Golden Shell. ‘O comono’ will hit theaters on October 11.
The Special Jury Prize and Best Cinematography went to ‘Kalak’, the second feature film by Swedish director Isabella Eklöf, which sets a story in Greenland about how abuse in childhood prevents building healthy relationships in adulthood.
Hovik Keuchkerian, best supporting actor for ‘Un amor’, by Isabel Coixet.
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The Spanish actor of Armenian-Lebanese origin Hovik Keuchkerian recalled his past as a comic stand-up comedian by collecting the Silver Shell for supporting performance with an initial show that gave way to glowing praise from Isabel Coixet. In ‘Un amor’, an adaptation of the novel by Sara Mesa, the director gives him one of those roles that will also lead to the Goya to this actor whose imposing physique serves wonderfully in the role of the protagonist’s neighbor, a surly and reserved man who He will offer to sleep with her in exchange for fixing up her house. The leading performance award, which does not distinguish between genres, went ex-aequo to the Argentinean Marcelo Subiotto, for ‘Puan’, and the Japanese Tatsuya Fuji, who already appeared in ‘The Empire of the Senses’, for ‘Great Absence’ .
The best script was that of ‘Puan’, a comedy by Argentinians María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat starring a philosophy professor. The Silver Shell for best direction went to Tzu-Hui Peng and non-binary director Ping-Wen Wang, from Taiwan, for ‘A Journey in Spring’, a sensitive debut film about grief and knowledge.
RECALLS 71st EDITION OF THE SAN SEBASTIÁN FESTIVAL
Golden Shell: Or corno, by Jaione Camborda.
Special Jury Prize: Kalak, by Isabella Eklöf.
Silver Shell for best direction: Peng Tzu-Hui and Wang Ping-Wen, for A Journey in Spring.
Silver Shell for best lead performance: ex aequo for Marcelo Subiotto (Puan) and Tatsuya Fuji (Great Absence).
Silver Shell for best supporting performance: Hovik Keuchkerian, for Un amor.
Best script: María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat, for Puan.
Best photography: Nadim Carlsen, by Kalak.
New Directors: Bahadur The Brave, by Diwa Shah.
Latin horizons: The castle, by Martín Benchimol.
Zabaltegi – Tabakalera: The rise of the human 3, by Eduardo Williams.
Audience Award: The Snow Society, by JA Bayona.
Youth Award: The Blue Star, by Javier Macipe.
Fipresci Award: Fingernails (This is going to hurt), by Christos Nikou.
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