The award-winning short filmmaker Chema García Ibarra makes his debut in the feature film with a peculiar and eccentric tragicomedy, which awakens philias and phobias while accumulating awards at festivals
‘Holy Spirit’ is not a dish for all tastes, and neither are the praised short films by its director, Chema García Ibarra, who specializes in “exploring the beauty of what cinema tends to marginalize.” Awarded here and there, he debuted with ‘Attack of the Nebula-5 robots’, a small-format cult piece shot with family and friends that established his style and obsessions. He does not like working with professional actors, he looks for humor and drama in naturalness, in misfit characters who face reality by surrendering to fantasy, in this case in the belief in the existence of beings from other worlds that, from time to time from time to time, they visit us.
UFOs, immortality, aliens, parapsychology and other dimensions alleviate the routine, the existential prison of a small group of characters that go beyond what we perhaps understand by normality, although their day to day is the one shared by most of the population (Spanish). We are talking about a risky and stimulating cinema, different and independent, which would not exist without institutional aid. Festival meat, which does not have an easy time opening a gap at the box office while garnering excellent reviews from the specialized press that defends auteur cinema through thick and thin (without thinking about the general public).
Special Mention from the Locarno Festival Jury, ‘Espíritu sagrado’ participated a few days ago in the Official Section of the Seville European Film Festival. García Ibarra’s debut feature maintains the constants of his cinema. Ugly aesthetics, absence of camera movements and little soundtrack. Slow rhythm and long shots that collect traditional scenes performed by a cast without profession. Filmed in Carrús (Elche), in 16mm and 35mm, with photography by Ion de Sosa, it presents real faces, with a casting led by Nacho Fernández, Llum Arques, Joanna Valverde and Rocío Ibáñez. They play the members of the UFO-Levante UFO association, determined to exchange anecdotes and information about abductions and sightings.
An image of ‘Holy Spirit’.
‘Holy Spirit’ symbolizes a free cinema, aware of its extravagance, which breaks the rules of the traditional mode of representation by betting, from the outset, on performers who do not behave in front of the camera according to the canons, a detail that can be understood as a suggestive virtue or a resounding defect. The realistic touch is undoubted, the same one that probably dazzles foreign critics on the festival circuit. A feeling of truth that takes you by the hand through a difficult road if we do not eliminate prejudices as a spectator.
“I’m interested in the game of opposites: that there is dark laughter and that the drama contains a comedy,” says a rare filmmaker who has managed to put in theaters his debut with La Aventura, the same distributor that opted for ‘Parasites’ before its release. bombshell. Undoubtedly, the contrast of extracting humor from the drama generates curious atmospheres full of ideas, some delightfully disconcerting. Distilling the extraordinary from the everyday, in deep Spain, is the main objective of the most commented title of the moment in the cinephile circles.
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