On Sunday it won the award for best international fiction short film at the Curtas Vila Do Conde Festival in Portugal
Film director Estíbaliz Urresola culminated a tremendous week at dawn on Sunday with ‘Cuerdas’, her latest work, which won the award for best international fiction short film at the Curtas Vila Do Conde Festival in Portugal. The news came just two days after learning that this work had been selected to participate in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section of the Zinemaldi in San Sebastian to be held in September.
The filmmaker from Llodia, who received both awards while filming her first feature, ‘20,000 species of bees’, was enthusiastic. “It’s a very prestigious festival,” she explained after learning about the award for the Portuguese contest.
In its assessment, the jury highlighted that ‘Cuerdas’ is characterized by «the performance of the protagonists and the location of the film, which is a central element of the narrative and at the same time symbolic of the exploration of nature and humanity. With great subtlety, the story evolves and takes us back to the moment. This film about civil courage, dignity and ‘homo economicus’ impressed us.”
The short film premiered on May 24 at the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival. From there, its director brought the ‘Le Rails d’or’ award to the Basque Country for the first time, equivalent to the public award. Barely two months after its premiere, the latest short film by the director from Alava has already accumulated two international awards. They will surely not be the last because the film has been included in the Kimuak 2022 catalog that includes Basque short films to send them to international festivals around the world. The works in this catalog are selected on the basis of their quality and that they are understandable to a very wide audience.
‘Cuerdas’ was shot in Llodio and Muzkiz last November. It presents a group of women who belong to a choir and who face the dilemma of accepting the sponsorship of one of the most polluting companies in the valley in which they live. This aid would guarantee the continuity of training in the event of the loss of the municipal subsidy.
Through this story, Urresola reflects on “the importance of cooperation, sisterhood, health and care for life.” In the success of the 29-minute short film, the work of the women’s choir of San Fuentes and Begoña Suárez, who plays Rita, the protagonist, in her first film role, who has embroidered at 91 years. It is a production by Sirimiri and Gariza Films, who also signed the award-winning ‘Polvo somos’ at the Malaga Festival and at the Bilbao International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Zinebi.