19/10/2018 - The films by Nicolás Pacheco and Miguel Ángel Viva are part of the official section of the 63rd Valladolid International Film Week, which kicks off on Saturday 20 October

Javier Angulo is back holding the reins of the unstoppable team who, year after year, make the Seminci (Valladolid International Film Week) such a feisty event. Those near the exquisite Castilian city flock to the gathering in their droves in order to religiously attend the screenings spread out across its various different sections. Standing out particularly at this impending 63^rd edition are two Spanish premieres of movies that will be battling it out for the Golden Spike due to be handed out by the jury, chaired by Portugal’s Miguel Gomes: Tu hijo [+see also:
film review
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film profile], a thriller helmed by Sevillian director Miguel Ángel Vivas, produced by Enrique López Lavigne (Apache Films) and featuring an intense performance by José Coronado, which reeks of a Goya nomination; and Jaulas [+see also:
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film profile], the debut feature by his fellow Andalucian Nicolás Pacheco, starring Antonio Dechent, Belén Ponce de León and Estefanía de los Santos, and distributed by A Contracorriente Films.

Other titles that will get an airing in the official section include Siew Hua Yeo’s A Land Imagined [+see also:
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film profile](a co-production between Singapore, the Netherlands and France), which won a trophy at Locarno; Ága [+see also:
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interview: Milko Lazarov
film profile] (Bulgaria/Germany/France) by Milko Lazarov, set in the snowy Northern wilderness; The Reports on Sarah and Saleem [+see also:
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film profile] (Palestine/Netherlands/Mexico/Germany) by Muayad Alayan; The Guilty [+see also:
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interview: Gustav Möller
film profile] (Denmark), a thriller by Swedish filmmaker Gustav Möller that will be released in Spain by Caramel Films on 23 November; Djon Africa [+see also:
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film profile] (Portugal/Brazil/Cape Verde), directed by duo Filipa Reis and João Miller Guerra; the acclaimed Dogman [+see also:
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interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile] (France/Italy) by Matteo Garrone, which will come out in Spain on 9 November, courtesy of Karma Films, the same company that will also bring the nigh-on unclassifiable Border [+see also:
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interview: Ali Abbasi
film profile] (Sweden/Denmark) by Iranian-Swedish helmer Ali Abassi to cinemas on 11 January 2019; In the Aisles [+see also:
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interview: Franz Rogowski
interview: Thomas Stuber
film profile] by Germany’s Thomas Stuber (distributed by Madrid-based Surtsey Films); Woman at War [+see also:
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interview: Benedikt Erlingsson
interview: Benedikt Erlingsson
film profile] (France/Iceland/Ukraine) by Benedikt Erlingsson, which will be released in Spain by Avalon; The Quietude [+see also:
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film profile] (Argentina/France) by Pablo Trapero (released by Wanda Visión); the Spanish-Argentinian co-production My Masterpiece [+see also:
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interview: Gastón Duprat
film profile] by Gastón Duprat (who scooped awards for the brilliantly scathing The Distinguished Citizen [+see also:
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film profile] by Italy’s Paolo Virzì, who has already won accolades at previous editions of the Seminci; and Erik Poppe’s horrific Norwegian drama based on actual events U – July 22 [+see also:
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interview: Erik Poppe
film profile], whose Spanish screening rights are owned by Caramel Films (which will release it on 25 January 2019).

The starting pistol for the Valladolid Film Week will be fired this Saturday 20 October by the aforementioned film by Miguel Ángel Vivas and by the awarding of the Honorary Spike to German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta (whose Searching for Ingmar Bergman [+see also:
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film profile] will be shown). It will be brought to a close one week later, on 27 October, by Head Full of Honey [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by von Trotta’s fellow countryman Til Schweiger, starring British thesp Jacqueline Bisset, and US actors Nick Nolte and Matt Dillon; the latter will also pick up an Honorary Spike. The other Honorary Spike will be bestowed upon Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who will have a retrospective dedicated to him at the gathering.

This top-notch and unmissable week for film buffs is rounded off by a forum on Female Film Producers in Spain, Young Seminci, a conference dedicated to Film and Climate Change, the Film & Wine session, which is being held for the fifth time, and the Find Distribution at Seminci sidebar (intended to facilitate Spanish exhibition for the 22 titles at the festival which do not yet have a Spanish distributor), among myriad other events and activities.

(Translated from Spanish)