The Valdivia International Film Festival announced their Official Selection for two of their main competitive categories: International Feature, and International Youth’s Feature. Three Chilean premieres, six Latin American ones, and one world debut make up the 10 films in the Official International Feature Selection. In turn, the Official International Youth’s Feature Selection, which is running for second year in a row, is composed of movies with diverse origins that explore the complexities of youth, from a variety of topics that make them impossible to classify.
The Southern Cone, a great peninsula and a great stage: several of the competing pictures in FICValdivia’s 2019 Official International Feature Selection have this territory in common, setting in it urban stories with protagonists as diverse as a single father and – literally – a building. Two are Chilean titles: Historia de mi Nombre (2019), by director Karin Cuyul, and Nona. Si me Mojan, Yo los Quemo (2019), by Camila José Donoso. Screening too will be the Brazilian production Sete anos em Maio (2019), by Affonso Uchoa, and Construcciones (2018), by Argentine filmmaker Fernando Restelli.
Also in competition from Latin America is Sirena (2019), by Bolivian director Carlos Piñeiro.
Argentina appears once again as a location, in Electric Swan (2019), by Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani. From far away latitudes, Khartoum Offside (2019), by Saudi director Marwa Zein, and 143 Sahara Street (2019), by Algerian filmmaker Hassen Ferhani.
The list is complete with Longa Noite (2019), by Spanish author Eloy Enciso, and the French-American production So Pretty (2019), by director Jessie Jeffrey Dunn.
Official Youth’s Feature Selection
People do not get kindly ushered into adulthood by knocking on a door, and they reach adolescence by a sharp kick. That same kick leaves you stunned in the seat, after the screening of a youth’s film such as those proposed by this specific competitive section at FICValdivia.
Like a feverish miniature Decameron, The World is Full of Secrets (2018), by American filmmaker Graham Swon, has an elderly woman remembering a summer night in 1996, in which five young girls meet to narrate long and macabre tales. What is fiction and what is reality? Dolores, the protagonist in Dolores un Día se Quedó Sola (2019), the first feature by Argentinean director Juiz Sebastián Alberto, runs into that same question. The title is literal: one day you wake up, and you’re absolutely alone.
Indonesia and Thailand are also part of the competition. The first one boasts a rebellious title: A Punk Daydream (2019). It will be the Latin American premiere of the film by Belgian director Jimmy Hendrickx, which makes a counterpoint through the life of a young punk. On the one side, there are conflicts with his parents; on the other, he approaches local indigenous tribes, exploring the tension of separating and coming together. Deepening on the same tension is BNK48: GIRLS DON’T CRY (2018), a Thai movie that follows the eponymous girlband, in which director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit reflects on the success of teamwork.
Football and class, along with football and migration are the themes that circulate in Parío y críao (2019), a feature by Chilean director Jorge Donoso that is holding its world premiere, and in La Fortaleza (2019), a Colombian production directed by Andrés Torres.
The Official International Youth’s Feature and Official International Feature Selections are two of the competing categories in the 26th Valdivia International Film Festival, a can’t-miss gathering that takes place between October 7 and 13. Find out about the complete program at www.joseluisr15.sg-host.com.
