This festival of Spanish-language films, created in 1998, is held in Málaga from Friday March 15th to Sunday 24th. A showcase for the national and Latin American film industries, this year it received more than 2,400 films from 59 countries. From these, 210 have been selected.
In the official selection, 22 films are in the running to win the festival’s Biznagas: 13 Spanish films and 9 Latin American films. The award winners will be chosen by a jury chaired by Spanish director Patricia Ferreira. She will be joined by Uruguayan producer Agustina Chiarino, Spanish scriptwriter Diego San José, the director of the Bogota International Film Festival Andrés Bayona and film-editor Nacho Ruiz Capillas.
The selection includes films by well-known film-makers – Fernando Colomo, Santia Amodeo – as well as younger women directors like Inés de Léon, who is presenting her first feature “Que te juegas?” and Neus Ballús with her second film, Staff Only.
Two films are in the official selection but out of competition – the festival’s opening and closing films, both starring actor Dani Rovira: Alejo Flah‘s Taxi a Gibraltar, and Álvaro Díaz Lorenzo’s Los Japón.
The non-competitive category Málaga Premiere has 8 films: a documentary, 4 feature films – including the Netflix production A pesar de Todo, directed by Gabriela Tagliavini – and 3 television series. Among the latter, there are two Movistar productions: season 2 of Gigantes, directed by Enrique Urbizu, and Instinto by Carlos Sedes and Roger Gual.
On the industry side, professionals are invited to get together at the MAFIZ, the Malaga Festival Industry Zone, for six events aimed at strengthening collaborations between Spanish and Latin American productions.
Festival director Juan Antonio Vigar said his goal is to “continue to push the concept of a festival which shows Spanish and Latin American cinema as it is today, in terms of creativity and output.”
Sources: https://www.panoramaaudiovisual.com, https://www.diariosur.es, https://www.elseptimoarte.net
