Cinema needs to constantly feed on new sap, on fresh and innovative perspectives that serve to renew the language, themes and artistic forms of the medium. But often, emerging creators usually encounter certain initial difficulties in reaching movie theaters, which makes the existence of other platforms that make their work visible and known to the public especially valuable.
In this sense, the work of a festival like REC is essential, which focuses all its efforts on presenting, disseminating and stimulating new talents, meetings between debuting directors and the audience, as well as disseminating the most interesting contemporary currents. of the current audiovisual landscape.
The Tarragona International Film Festival, which celebrates its twenty-second edition from November 30 to December 7, is, in fact, the only state event dedicated exclusively to Opera Prima at an international level, both in terms of films programmed for competition as well as for parallel sections and professional activities.
In addition, it has the RECLab, a platform where directors and producers can present projects that are in the final stage of assembly, before a selection of theater programmers, agents or distributors with an international profile. This “first test” is complemented by one-on-one meetings and the holding of professional conferences that aim to create opportunities and reflect on the future of cinema in the country, and its diffusion beyond our borders.
Films have already passed through the RECLab which have since become essential references for a new auteur cinema created in Catalonia and other parts of Spain and which have traveled to prestigious festivals around the world, such as Summer 1993, by Carla Simón, Júlia Ist, by Elena MartÃn, With the wind, by Meritxell Colell, or Flash bravÃo, by Ainhoa ??RodrÃguez.
Ópera Prima is, without a doubt, the “star section” of the festival. Its mission is to bring together the best debuts of the year to make their directors known and bring the works closer to the public. Among this year’s “harvest” we find an original dystopian fable that imagines a society divided by film roles, The Ordinaries, signed by the German Sophie Linnenbaum.
There is also Suro, one of the most successful projects of the RECLab last year, trained worldwide in San Sebastián, where he managed to win the International Critics Award. This beautiful intimate drama, directed by Mikel Gurrea and starring Vicky Luengo and Pol López, shows the challenges faced by a couple about to have their first child, who, tired of urban life in Barcelona, ??decide to recover the old his family’s cork oak farm.
Park Sang-min’s South Korean I Haven’t Done Anything is a brilliant, iconoclastic satire on the all-consuming consumerism of social media, starring an actor bent on making it at all costs on YouTube and Instagram.
The British and American co-production Aftersun, for its part, is a nostalgic evocation of a father-daughter vacation that proposes a sharp reflection on parent-child relationships and personal memories, taking advantage of the aesthetics of home videos.
To all these titles we must add the Spanish 21 ParaÃso, by Néstor Ruiz Medina, a film narrated in 21 sequence-shots shot in 16mm that shows the life of a naturist couple who live in a rural environment and who offer their most intimate moments. on the paid social network OnlyFans.
The REC programming will also allow you to enjoy the Vermouth Sessions, in which a subsequent aperitif is added to the projection. In this section, we find titles such as the risky romantic comedy with an arty aesthetic Ramona, directed by Andrea Bagney and starring Lourdes Hernández, better known as Russian Red; or the Portuguese Los demonios de mud, by Nuno Beato, a beautiful film of vital self-discovery shot in stop-motion and inspired by Portuguese ceramic art and legends of the country.
We will also be able to see the Norwegian Ninja Baby, by Yngvild Sve Flikke, a hilarious and groundbreaking comedy, which incorporates animation into the real image, about a young woman forced to grow up before an unexpected pregnancy; and Francesca i l’amor, directed by an old friend of the festival, Alba Sotorra, who through the portrait of a Barcelona plastic artist, Francesca Llopis, invites us to reflect on topics such as the search for personal freedom or the role of woman in society.
In addition to programming these jewels of independent cinema, discoveries with a desire to promote and empower the festival’s young talent, in this year’s edition, the REC will screen the winning films of the Cannes Festivals (Ruben Ostulnd’s Triangle of Sadness), de Locarno (Rule 34 by Júlia Murat), and San Sebastián (The Kings of the World by Laura Mora), the latter film which will also be the closing film of this edition of the REC.
The 22nd edition of the REC festival will host special screenings of films such as El sostre Groc (The Yellow Roof), the documentary directed by Isabel Coixet about the case of sexual abuse at the Lleida theater school. Or the new work by the Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda, Broker, starring Song Kang-ho (Parasites), which after passing through the Cannes festival, will arrive at the REC before its theatrical release throughout Spain.
We can also enjoy sections such as TU, TOT, TOTHOM, the thematic selection that serves to take the pulse of the current moment (Focus In); a Family Session in collaboration with the Museu d’Art Modern de Tarragona, aimed at children; the Tarragona Authors section, which shows a selection of short films shot by young filmmakers from the area; and the Mira’m Educational Project, which offers projections designed for secondary school students in the region who can generate debate with the film’s artistic team and also in the classroom.
Likewise, the festival is strongly committed to environmental sustainability. For this reason, it has developed a series of measures to reduce its carbon footprint, betting on copies of digital download films, reducing printing on paper, eliminating plastic in meals and social events, opting to work with km0 companies that apply criteria ecological and opting for means of transport such as the railway.
REC has already become an essential event for all those who wish to discover new talent, beyond the impositions of the commercial circuit, and to be able to have close encounters in order to learn first-hand about the interests and work of these creators.
