10/12/2018 - The young Galician festival, which will close this year with Eloy Domínguez Serén’s Hamada, is gearing up for its most ambitious edition yet, with an official selection packed with European films

From 11 to 16 December, the city of Pontevedra will host the third edition of the Novos Cinemas film festival. Founded in 2015 by producer and screenwriter Daniel Froiz (The Wild Season [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), programme director Suso Novás and director Ángel Santos (The High Pressures [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ángel Santos
film profile], Dos fragmentos/Eva), the festival is set to unveil its most exciting edition so far, with an ambitious programme overseen by artistic director Ángel Santos. A total of 15 films will take part in the festival’s two competitive sections: The Official Selection and the Heartbeats Section.

Among those competing in a decisively European Official Selection are nine first or second features, all of which premiered this year at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno or elsewhere on the festival circuit. Thirty Souls [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Diana Toucedo
film profile], from Spanish filmmaker Diana Toucedo, The Tree [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Portugal’s André Gil Mata, The Dead and the Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora (a co-production between Brazil and Portugal), You Have the Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Salatić
film profile], directed by Ivan Salatić (Montenegro) and French productions Sophia Antipolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Virgil Vernier
film profile] by Virgil Vernier and A Violent Desire for Joy [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Clément Schneider are all hoping to go home with the award for the festival’s best film.

Meanwhile, the second competitive section, entitled Heartbeats (Latexos, in Galician), will present five films by the youngest directors on today’s film scene. Arriving at Novos Cinemas after screenings at the Seville European Film Festival and Black Nights in Tallinn is Letters to Paul Morrissey [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Armand Rovira
film profile], by Spanish director Armand Rovira. Also fresh from Seville is <3 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Spanish filmmaker María Antón Cabot. The third and final European film selected for the Heartbeats section is Young & Beautiful [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], winner of the Audience Award at this year’s Punto de Vista festival and directed by Marina Lameiro, also from Spain.

The Galician festival will also be paying tribute to Portuguese filmmaker Teresa Villaverde, with a retrospective on her work. Eight of the Lisbon-born director’s best films will be shown over the course of the festival, including her most recent productions Galileo’s Thermometer [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Colo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teresa Villaverde
film profile]. Finally, the third edition of Novos Cinemas will close with Hamada [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eloy Domínguez Serén
film profile], the new documentary from Galician filmmaker Eloy Domínguez Serén, recently presented at the Gijón International Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).

(Translated from Spanish)