Lisandro Alonso earns best director honors, and Alba Rohrwacher and Swann Arlaud receive acting prizes, while Claudia Estrada Tarascó’s 'Salen las lobas' emerged as one of the festival's discoveries French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis’ “Dao,” an expansive family saga spanning Europe and Africa, was awarded the Golden Spike for best film at Spain’s 71st Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci) while Marine Atlan’s acclaimed debut “La Gradiva” received the Silver Spike. Unfolding between a wedding in France and an ancestral memorial ceremony in Guinea-Bissau, Gomis’ three-hour film blurs fiction and documentary, gathering a sprawling cast of professional and non-professional performers to explore family ties, migration and the pull of inherited traditions. The international jury praised the film’s distinctive cinematic form, citing its use of rhythm, duration and movement to create an intimate yet immersive atmosphere.
Reviewing the new film, Variety’s Guy Lodge called it the director’s “most vibrantly expansive and accessible” work. The Party Film Sales handles international sales while Janus Films holds North American distribution rights. Atlan’s “La Gradiva” premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, where it won its top Grand Prix, before receiving the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Bright Horizons Award in August.
At Valladolid, the French-Italian feature also picked up the José Salcedo editing prize for Guillaume Lillo and the Rainbow Spike, recognizing LGBTQ-related cinema. Set during a French school trip to Naples and Pompeii, the film follows a group of teenagers navigating desire, insecurity and the last moments of adolescence. MK2 Films represents international sales.
Argentine filmmaker Lisandro Alonso, whose credits include “Jauja” and “Eureka,” earned the Ribera del Duero best director award for “Double Freedom,” the well-received sequel to his 2001 debut “Freedom,” sold by Luxbox. Acting honors went to Alba Rohrwacher for Stéphane Brizé’s “A Good Little Soldier,” in which she plays a corporate executive caught in a system of profit at any cost, and Swann Arlaud for Emmanuel Marre’s “A Man of His Time,” about a French engineer drawn into the Vichy regime. Marre’s film also picked up the cinematography award for Olivier Boonjing.
Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner won the Miguel Delibes screenplay prize for “Everytime,” a drama exploring grief and memory through digital technology. The official competition jury gave a special mention to Tiago Guedes’ “Aquí.” Beyond the main competition, Thai filmmaker Sompot Chidgasornpongse took the Meeting Point prize for “9 Temples to Heaven,” which premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. The contemplative family pilgrimage drama marks the fiction-feature debut of a longtime collaborator of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Marc Ferrer’s “Cinemanía” received the Fundos Award, while Manon Coubia won the ESCAC directing prize for “Forest High.” Spanish debut “Salen las lobas” emerged as a double audience favorite, taking both the Meeting Point Audience Award and the Seminci Youth Prize. Directed by Claudia Estrada Tarascó, the film follows girls in a juvenile justice facility who bond over music and dreams of a Barcelona trap competition. Produced by Alba Sotorra’s Oceanika, it is sold internationally by MoreThan Films and is set for a Dec. 11 Spanish theatrical release through Silencio Cinema.
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