I might be a male (well, I am actually, haha) but I have to say that the inclusion of a ‘Focus on Female Filmmakers’ section at the Spanish Film Festival in Australia has taken it to new heights. Nine of the 39 films in the 2024 festival compiled and hosted by Palace Cinemas are in this category, and the ones I’ve seen so far have been terrific.
It’s the second year in a row that the festival has had a Focus on Female Filmmakers – there were seven such films in the 2023 Spanish Film Festival. So what’s going on? It is that the past couple of years just happened to be really good for female storytelling, or is there more to it than that? The best person so ask is Palace Cinemas chief executive Benjamin Zeccola.
“The notable selection of films by Spanish female film makers in this year’s Film Festival is a natural result of the intentional push from the Spanish government, which has implemented policies to increase gender parity for female film makers in Spain,” he says. Other countries, take note!
The featured female filmmakers this year are: Arantxa Echevarría, Laura Alvea, Itaso Arana, Juana Macías, Isabel Coixet, Laura Jou, Patricia Font and Teresa Bellón.
Liberation’s better late than never
The 2024 female focus section covers a range of issues, including elderly women discovering or embracing their sexual and sensual selves, which society had suppressed when they were younger. I had a very Catholic upbringing in my1960s-70s childhood and teens, so when I saw the trailer for Mamacruz (above) I put it on my list of “must sees”. When Cruz -Mamacruz is her nickname – clicks on a pop-up link on her tablet telling her she has won one million euros, her life changes in ways that she would never have imagined. Kiti Mánver (pictured at top) of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown fame
“Mamacruz is transformative in the way that it details how an elegant lady in her 60s stumbles across some [pornographic] images and has a kind of awakening of desires and feelings that have been long suppressed, and how she reconciles those feelings with her faith and the societal norms that have been imposed on her for a lifetime,” says Zeccola. “With an all-star cast and beautiful performances, it’s sensitive and beautiful and not to be missed.”
The film becomes more poignant and engaging when Mamacruz joins a therapy class, allowing friendships to form as they help each other pertinent issues. The moral of the story? In a very judgmental world, a sympathetic ear can be very healing.
Laia Costa and Hovik Keuchkerian star in Un Amor.
Fearless voices
“Another fascinating film,” Benjamin Zeccola says,” is Memories of a Burning Body (Memorias de un cuerpo que arde), described as the conversations women never had with their grandmothers. The fearless voices of three women who were raised in a repressive era, where sexuality was taboo, have them channelled into a single 65-year-old woman in the present day.”
Also fearless is Nat, the lead character in Isabel Coixet’s film Un Amor, who arrives in a derelict village in the remote Aínsa-Sobrarbe part of Aragon, where vultures fly gracefully around the striking mountains that provide a stunning background to the gloomy, partially abandoned area. Before long, the lonely oddball men of the village are hovering like vultures around her. Nat, played by acclaimed actress Laia Costa, has to tread carefully in what Variety‘s Guy Lodge calls a “study of sex as social currency [that’s] both frank and occasionally disturbing.”
Almudena Amor and Javier Rey star in The Sleeping Woman.
Highly recommended
- The Sleeping Woman (La Mujer Dormida) – A disconsolate husband hires a live-in nurse to take care of his wife, who’s in a long-term coma. As the nurse and husband become emotionally and physically attached, the sleeping woman’s evil spirit seeks vengeance on her. Could it be a fatal attraction for the pretty young nurse? It’s a good, old-fashioned scary movie, you’ll jump in fright! Then the scriptwriters come up with the cleverest twist in the plot, and all your preconceptions are blown away.
- Something Is About To Happen. It sure is! Malena Alterio gives an acting masterclass playing sweet Lucia, an IT worker who has to take up taxi work after the IT company goes bankrupt. Her run of bad luck is seemingly coming to an end as she befriends influential people while driving them around. But then there’s another brilliant twist in the plot, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! It’s no surprise that Alterio won the 2024 Goya Award for Best Actress. The film’s Spanish title is Que Nadie Duerma, taken from the novel of the same name by Juan José Millás. M5R
