Spain boasts a bullish presence at the Berlinale. Following, short profiles of its features that have made the festival cut and a selection of top titles being moved at the European Film Market:
20,000 SPECIES OF BEES
Director: Estíbaliz Urresola
Spain’s Berlin competition player is from Urresola, director of Cannes Critics’ Week short “Chords.” Film takes place in a Basque Country village and is a celebration of female sexual diversity. Catalonia’s Inicia Films (“La Maternal”) produces with Gariza Films (“Nora”).
Sales: Luxbox
21 PARAÍSO
Director: Nestor Ruiz Medina
A couple in love grapples with the realities of making a living through OnlyFans. Set in an Andalusian idyll, a rich portrait of the challenges of love. Screened at Seville and Tallinn.
Sales: Begin Again Films.
ANQA
Director: Helin Celik
A Forum doc feature from Vienna-based Kurd Celik, the films tells the harrowing story of three Jordanian women, survivors of male near-fatal violence.
CHEAPER THAN STEALING
Director: Pedro Collantes
A postmodern black comedy from Collantes, director of Spain’s first Biennale College Cinema feature. A drama-comedy, turning on an Uber driver hired by an ad agency and plunged into a world where, says Collantes, “political correctness becomes a commodified currency.”
Sales: Sideral
CHINAS
Director: Arantxa Echeverría
Arantxa Echeverría’s return to the spirit and ethnic context of “Carmen & Lola” in the tale of two young Chinese girls in Madrid searching for a sense of identity.
Sales: Latido
CLOSE YOUR EYES
Director: Victor Erice
The return of Erice (“The Spirit of the Beehive”) to feature filmmaking 30 years after “Dream of Light,” film revolves “around issues such as identity and memory,” its producers say. Big fest play beckons.
GIRL UNKNOWN
Director: Pablo Maqueda
A thriller with a twist from the director of “Dear Werner (Walking on Cinema).”
Sales: Filmax
GIRLFRIENDS AND GIRLFRIENDS
Director: Zaida Carmona
A five-way lesbian comedy, riffing on pop culture, love and Eric Rohmer as the film drifts through the apartments, parties and streets of Barcelona. Screened as a Rotterdam Bright Futures title.
Sales: Begin Again
GOLEM
Directors: Juan González and Fernando Martínez, aka “Burnin’ Percebes”
Produced by Aquí y Allí Films and Sideral, a star-spangled cast peppers the fantasy feature debut of one of the most intriguing duos on current Spanish film-TV scene.
Sales: Sideral
IVAN & HADOUM
Director: Ian de la Rosa
Backed by producer Avalon (“Alcarràs”) this highly anticipated feature debut from “Veneno” co-writer de la Rosa details the love story between a trans- gender man and Spanish-Moroccan woman.
Berlinale Co-Production Market.
IRATI
Director: Paul Urquijo
A Basque sword-and-mace epic that won Sitges’ Audience Award and racked up major territory sales such as Germany (Splendid) and Italy (Blue Swan). Urquijo’s sophomore outing after the Alex de al Iglesia-produced “The Devil and the Blacksmith.”
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
Director: Inés De León
The latest family comedy from “Torrente” creator-star Santiago Segura with Paz Vega returning to comedy as a mother whose children depart without her on a high-speed train to France. Spain’s biggest late-2022 bow, it grossed €6.2 million ($6.8 million) by early February.
Sales: Latido
MAMACRUZ
Director: Patricia Ortega
A devout grandmother hits the G-spot in a late recovery of erotic life. Well- received at Sundance and lead-produced by Olmo Figueredo at La Claqueta (“The Endless Trench”), it’s a coming-of-age in old age story, he says.
Sales: Filmax
MATRIA
Director: Alvaro Gago
Gago’s Berlin Panorama player, a feature version of his 2018 Sundance winning short, portrays canning factory worker Ramona’s lifelong battle for economic independence.
Sales: New Europe Film Sales
MISSION TO MARS
Director: Amat Vallmajor del Pozo
Unspooling in Berlin’s Critics Week, pic is described as a dramedy, turning on Txomin and brother Gene, who set off on an adventure across Northern Spain as Gene’s health fails. It’s a chronicle of “the death of the Basque punk generation of the ’80s, of utopias and rebellion,” says the director.
SAMSARA
Director: Lois Patiño
Film is described as a soul’s journey to reincarnation from the temples of Laos to Zanzibar. “A film like you’ve never seen before,” promises sales agent Luis Renart; but not that far, perhaps, from the more fantastical scenes of Patiño’s “Red Moon Tide.” Produced by Señor y Señora, a Berlin Encounters title.
Sales: Bendita Films
SICA
Director: Carla Subirana
Playing Berlin’s Generation 14Plus, the first fiction feature of Carla Subirana (“Kanimambo”) is a classic coming-of- age tale set on the treacherous Costa da Morte. Alba Sotorra produces with Galicia’s Mirememira.
Sales: Latido Films
SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN
Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza
The anticipated film is the latest from the 2012 Cannes Critics’ Week winner (“Aquí y Allá”) and 2018 Independent Spirits laureate (“Life and Nothing More”), billed as a road movie with surreal black-comedy touches.
Sales: Film Factory
THE TREE
Director: Ana Vaz
Playing in Berlin’s Forum Expanded, this is a meditation on the director’s father, the artist, musician and mystic Guilherme Vaz, shot in 30-second sequences.
THE WAILING
Director: Pedro Martín-Calero
One of the most powerful Spanish- language packages being brought onto the market at Berlin, a novel auteur genre movie starring “Elite’s” Ester Expósito, co-written by Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scribe Isabel Peña (“The Beasts”) and produced by Caballo Films.
Sales: The Film Factory
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