Fifteen of the 75 films that had won the Golden Shell Before this Saturday they were Spanish, and all of them led by men; The figure is not particularly surprising if one takes into account the limited space that this festival had for a long time for female directors – like everyone else, on the other hand – but that does not make it any less regrettable. And when it comes to arguing the victory achieved tonight in the San Sebastian Festival for the donostiarra Jaione Camborda With his second feature film, ‘O Corno’, it is worth taking into account the efforts made by the festival to repair that statistic.
All Spanish movies included this year among the titles in competition have been directed by women, and the list of winners has been compiled by a mostly female jury chaired by Frenchwoman Claire Denis, who has spent a good part of her impeccable career as a filmmaker enduring the fact of being the only woman, or almost, in a man’s world. And nothing said up to this point, of course, is intended to suggest that the artistic merits accredited by the new Golden Shell They are not enough to make it worthy of the award.
In the late 60’s
‘O Corno’ is located in the Galician Arosa Island at the end of the 60s to accompany a midwife who is forced to flee to Portugal after the death of a teenager whom she had helped to abort, and who on her journey comes into contact with a succession of female characters willing to help and protect her. . While staging this manifestation of sorority, Camborda not only confirms his extraordinary ability to narrate through the contemplation of bodies in movement – he already made it clear in his debut work, ‘Arima’ -, especially evident in the overwhelming sequence of almost 10 minutes that opens the film, during which a woman gives birth; she also demonstrates an exceptional ability to move fluidly between genres and tones.
‘O Corno’, after all, is at the same time a sampler of different feminine attitudes facing motherhood, an intrigue that precisely handles suspense, a ‘road movie’ with touches of ‘western’ and, above all, a plea as subtle as it is resounding about the right of women to decide about their bodies. It takes place in a time, the end of the Franco regime, in which it was denied to them by law, and it speaks to a present in which those who seek to eliminate it are once again aggressively making themselves heard.
Related news
Claire DenisRemember, she has spent years participating in festivals that used to be awarded exclusively to films made by men, and that helps explain why practically all the other important awards announced this Saturday have gone to feminist fictions directed entirely or partially by women.
He Special Jury Prize -the second in importance- has fallen on ‘Kalak’, by the Danish Isabella Eklöf, which uses the portrait of a man marked by the sexual abuse suffered by his father when he was a child to demonstrate that patriarchal masculinity harms men. men almost as much as women; the one of Best Address It has been for the couple composed of Tzu-Hui Peng and Ping-Wen Wang – a woman and a non-binary person -, who in the Taiwanese drama ‘A Journey in Spring’ They see a man who, after the death of his wife, tries to repair the family ties he broke due to his sexist prejudices; the very fine Argentine comedy ‘Puan’, half directed by María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat, has won both the award for Best screenplay such as the award for Best Lead Performance for Marcelo Subiotto, who has shared the award ‘ex aequo’ with the protagonist of ‘Great Absence’, the legendary actor Tatsuya Fuji – in his most famous film, ‘The Empire of the Senses’ ( 1976), was subjected to genital mutilation; and the Award for Best Supporting Performance has been awarded to Hovik Keuchkerian for his portrayal of a man trapped in his own manhood in ‘Un amor’, by Isabel Coixet. A feminist honorswe say, and also quite indisputable.