‘The Mastermind’ and ‘Magallanes’ win ‘ex aequo’ the Golden Spike of the seventieth Seminci of Valladolid | Cinema: premieres and opinions | EUROtoday

The Mastermind, by the American Kelly Reichardt, and Magellan, from the Filipino Lav Diaz, have gained from the identical the Golden Spike for the very best movie on the seventieth version of the Seminci, the Valladolid movie pageant. For the jury, The Mastermind “with elegance and irony he deconstructs the rules of the genre to reveal what is hidden behind the action: desire, illusion and failure; his narrative plays with the conventions of heist cinema and Kelly Reichardt unfolds an intimate look at human fragility and perseverance”; and about Magellan explains: “Achieve the reconstruction of a fascinating character full of contradictions through his narrative ambition, his formal rigor and his unique way of articulating historical reflection with cinematographic experience.” In seven decades of the contest there have only been three Golden Spikes from the same precedents: in 1963, 1971 and 1984.

The Mastermind is a brilliant existentialist adventure in which an unemployed carpenter steals some paintings by the American master of abstraction Arthur Dove in the middle of a United States in full swing against the Vietnam War. Reichardt lets his character wander, making the worst decisions at the worst times, immersed in his doubts and torments, while in parallel life explodes in the opposite direction to his steps. The film premiered yesterday Friday in commercial cinemas in Spain. In Cannes, at the film’s presentation, the American noted: “My idea was to make a heist film, not a political one. They all are, but in this case the main motivation was more aesthetic. However, politics crept in because, probably, everything is politics. Everything has changed for the worse.” The Mastermind It has also won the award for best photography at the Seminci for Christopher Blauvelt.

Magellan is an approach by the Filipino Lav Diaz, at his usual slow pace, to the life of the famous navigator, played by the Mexican Gael García Bernal. It is the Filipino candidate for the Oscar for best international film and has a Spanish co-production, from Andergraun Films, by Albert Serra, who was present at the reading of the awards, and Montse Triola. Diaz refines his style to a narrative nudity parallel to the Portuguese’s journey, and from the initial mystification of the character he moves on to an analysis of colonization through greed, violence and the thirst for power.

The Silver Spike was Silent Friend, by the Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi; shows how in the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval city in Germany stands a ginkgo, an ancient tree that attracts the attention of three people over more than 100 years: a neuroscientist (played by Tony Leung) from Hong Kong, a young woman who observes a geranium and a student at the dawn of the 20th century who immerses herself in the mysteries of photography. The award for best direction was won by The night is already leaving, of the Argentines Ezequiel Salinas and Ramiro Sonzini. The jury points out: “In these difficult times in Argentina, especially in audiovisual creation, the film supports the idea of ​​love and conciliation.”

The award for best male performance went to Harry Melling, who in Pillion abandons all memory of his past in the saga Harry Potter to play a parking security guard, a poor man who falls in love in a sadomasochistic relationship with a charismatic member of a gay motorcycle gang, played by Alexander Skarsgård. Best actress goes to American Eva Victor, for Sorry, Baby, who also directs this drama as a debutant, which gives a twist to the narratives about sexual abuse and its consequences, and which is one of the great films indies Americans of the season.

Miguel Delibes has won the award for best script Subsoil, a text by Fernando Franco, also director of the film, and Begoña Arostegui, which delves into the murky relationship between two twin brothers.

In all the honors we miss a recognition of the outstanding and overwhelming proposal of love for cinema by Resurrection, by Bi Gan, which has been among the best in the official section.

A different jury has awarded the Pilar Miró prize for the best Spanish direction by a newcomer in any section to stranger, by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias, which tells the story of Cata, a young woman who, in the middle of her summer vacation in Mallorca, must face the death of her grandmother. This story about grief takes an unexpected turn when Cata begins to assume the identity of her grandmother. The film has already won the Fipresci prize from international critics in the section in which it participated at the Toronto festival.

Among the rest of the honors, the Fipresci prize from international critics stands out for Two prosecutors, by Sergei Loznitsa, a political drama that reflects the harshness and death sown in the USSR by Stalinism. The Green Spike was for the aforementioned Silent Friend, by the Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi; the Rainbow Spike fell on Between Dreams and Hope, by the Iranian Farnoosh Samadi, and in the Meeting Point section the award for best film went to Laughter and the razor, by the Portuguese Pedro Pinho. The audience award went to Hamnet, by Chloé Zhao, which was in the official section, although out of competition, and which is one of the big favorites in the Oscar race.

In its provisional stability, this version of Seminci attracted greater than 100,000 spectators to the cinemas, and expects to exceed by roughly 6% the 98,000 of the final version, which in flip represented a rise of 11.4% in comparison with the earlier one.