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| Cenizas (Carlos Balbuena, 2013) |
Until 10th November, Márgenes is hosting 7 of the films from the official selection of the 14th edition of the festival VISUAL Cine Novísimo (which ran between 18th to 24th October). The festival has always focussed on newer talents, but since 2012 has concentrated on óperas primas (directorial debuts). This year two films shared the Best Film prize: Slimane (José A. Alayón, 2013) - which is among the films available at Márgenes - and Sobre la marxa / Creator of the Jungle (Jordi Morató, 2014), which I'll be seeing at the Leeds Film Festival in just over a week.
The seven films (which include fiction and documentary) available to view for free are:
- Cenizas (Carlos Balbuena, 2013)
- Gabor (Sebastián Alfie, 2013)
- Hotel Nueva Isla (Irene Gutiérrez, 2014)
- La casa de meu pere (Francina Verdés, 2014)
- Punto de partida (Sandra Rodríguez, 2013)
- Slimane (José A. Alayón, 2013)
- Temporal (Catxo, 2012)
The only one I've seen so far (just this evening) is Cenizas. Produced by Pere Portabella's 59Films, it is a starkly beautiful (the crisp black and white cinematography by Carlos Balbuena and Marta Ayuso is stunning) and almost wordless film, which follows a man as he returns to his home town (seemingly after a death in the family - the film opens with a funeral) and explores the surrounding landscapes. The gear shift about 8 minutes from the end didn't entirely work for me (although seeing Portabella's name in the credits contextualised it somewhat), but I'll be interested to see what Balbuena does next because he definitely has an eye for framing strong visual compositions.
