Can ‘20,000 species of bees’, the first film by Estibaliz Urresola, win the golden bear? Does Spanish cinema have the chance to win again at the Berlinale just one year later? The databases are skeptical about it: throughout the history of the contest, only seven filmmakers born within our borders have won the prestigious award -and three of them, mind you, shared it ‘ex aequo’, in 1978-, and when Carla Simón obtained it last year thanks to ‘Alcarràs’, almost four decades had already passed since her most immediate predecessor did. There are also only seven award-winning films since 1951 that have been directed by women, and even less the first works. On no more than three occasions, finally, the statuette has gone to two consecutive feature films of the same nationality.
To counteract the numbers, in addition to set phrases -“statistics are to be broken”-, we have less platitudes: Urresola’s film has received frankly positive reviews from the international pressand addresses the type of relevant and burning issue -the family and social misunderstanding that a girl who suffers from a girl suffering from gender dysphoria- capable of generating consensus in her favor among the members of the jury. Will Simon’s presence among them be an advantage in terms of the film’s chances of victory, or an inconvenience? Hard to tell.
Of course, to speculate about the possible presence of ‘20,000 species of bees’ in the list of winners, it is necessary to consider the other aspiring films. And the truth is that theThe three that show the most merits to win the Golden Bear do not have it easy to agree with the judges. ‘Past Lives’, an exquisite love story directed by the Korean-Canadian Celine Song, arrived at this festival surrounded by extraordinary critics and established as the rival to beat after passing through the Sundance Festival, and that could play against it if the jury does not want to give the impression of having gone easy; ‘Suzume’, stunning ‘anime’ signed by Makoto Shinkai, posted stupendous box office numbers after opening in Japan three months ago, and the Golden Bear winner will almost certainly end up being a production that needs the award more to ensure its commercial run; an ideal choice would be ‘Afire’, the new by German Christian Petzold, because It is a wonderful film and because the director has been deserving recognition of this caliber for years. But it’s a comedyand that is a genre traditionally ignored not only by the Berlinale but by any festival.
for public health
With regard to the last three films presented this year in the competition, their options to find a place on the list of winners are mixed. It is difficult, from the outset, to find a place for ‘Art College 1994’, the second animated feature film by Chinese director Liu Jian, to fit into the list of winners, because the succession of conversations about art on which it is built are not only tiring but also, worse still, painfully superficial and naive.
Anyway, much rawer has it ‘Till the End of the Night’, authentic nonsense directed by the German Christoph Hochhäusler; At the same time criminal intrigue for ‘dummies’, a portrait of the mischief suffered by a trans woman and a Time.news of the doomed love between that woman and a gay police officer who, in addition to being a transphobe, is an abuser, works as an involuntary comedy in any of these three facets.
Instead, finally an award for ‘Sur l’adamant’ is not only not ruled out, but is also within the probable. Its director is the French documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, who a few years ago became something of an auteur cinema phenomenon thanks to ‘Being and Having’ (2002) -a window into the life of a primary school class from the provinces throughout throughout a whole course – and that in his new job he enters a ship docked in the Seine River converted into a health center for the mentally ill. From there, the film works as a heartfelt tribute to a type of characters that cinema does not usually pay attention to and as a convincing statement of the value of public health. Will the jury have the same opinion? We are very close to finding out.