In two years Seminci has established itself as the most powerful Spanish festival after San Sebastián. It has recovered that space and has done so by achieving a powerful Official Section that is committed to Spanish cinema and getting almost all the competing filmmakers to present their films, something essential for a competition. In the second edition led by José Luis Cienfuegos, the commitment to this more authorial cinema has been closed with the Golden Spike for Mercy, the latest film by Alain Guiraudie, the director of The stranger of the lake which here delivers an apparently rural thriller, but full of homoeroticism, bad temper, black humor and a reflection on the church, morality and how sex and love can be currencies in today’s society.
Guiraudie is one of those filmmakers who swim against the current of fashion, and the jury has awarded him not only the first prize, but also the Best Screenplay. Mercy It is also a small triumph for Spanish cinema, since it is produced by Albert Serra and his partner Montse Triola through their production company Andergraun Films. You could say, in fact, that it is a new victory for the Catalan filmmaker and his commitment to films that go beyond the canons of the industry. Mercy It was at the last Cannes festival, but did not compete for any awards, since it could only be seen in the Cannes premiere section.
The jury has chosen a list of awards in which there are no films awarded in other international competitions. Two of the favorites are left out, such as The brutalist either Vermiglio, both with awards in Venice, and there are bets that a prize at Seminci can help much more in their commercial career, such as that award for Best Director that the jury gave to Guan Hu for Black Dog.
Seminci also confirms the great state of Spanish cinema, which sees several of its Official Section proposals enter the list of winners. The original and surprising musical about euthanasia by Carlos Marqués-Marcet, Dust They Willachieves the second prize, the Silver Spike (ex aequo with Stranger Eyes, by Yeo Siew Hua). A more than deserved award for one of our finest and most daring filmmakers who has made a film that is unlike any other, with songs by María Arnal and choreographies by La Veronal, and a spectacular leading duo, Ángela Molina and Alfredo Castro, who They received a special mention from the jury for their performances.
It also won a prize Hail Mary, Mar Coll’s thriller about motherhood, which shows the doubts of a repentant mother as if it were a horror film. Her award for Best Actress for Laura Weissmahr is unbeatable. No performance in this Seminci is at the level of what this hypnotic actress does. This award should place her in the Goya race for Best New Actress; just as this record should vindicate Dust They Will and Hail Mary as two of the great Spanish titles of the year. The Pilar Miró award for the best Spanish debut film went to End of Partyby Elena Manrique, for its satire against posh people and against racism.
The award for best actor was also shared by Jan Gunnar Røise and Thorbjørn Harr, the two interpreters of Sex –which has just been released in Spanish theaters -, the film by Norwegian Dag Johan Haugerud, which inaugurates his trilogy about sex and love of which the second part has already been seen, Love, in Venice. With his humanist style, the filmmaker offers a reflection on masculinity, gender and identity through the conversations of two chimney sweeps who see how what makes them heterosexual men falters after two events: the first has sex with another man, and the second dreams that he is a woman. The interpretation of both, without fuss and very measured, is one of the great assets of a film that bases almost all its strength on the conversations of both.
Seminci’s honors also recognize technical work, and rewarded the editing of Telmo Churro and Pedro Filipe Marqués in Grand Tour, the beautiful film by Miguel Gomes with which the Portuguese director won the Best Director award at Cannes; and Gao Weizhe’s photography in Black Dog. US indie cinema, one of the great strengths of this edition, had to settle for the Fipresci prize awarded by international critics for Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, by Tyler Taormina; and that of the public to Bob Trevino Likes it, by Tracie Laymon.
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