‘20,000 Bees,’ ‘Sica,’ ‘Girl Unknown,’ ‘Upon Entry’ Energize Malaga Fest Competition
variety.comJohn Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Running March 10-19, and now hosting the Spanish Screenings, the Malaga Film Festival is now firmly established as Spain’s biggest movie event in the early part of the year.
Strategically positioned fairly sharp on the heels of the Berlinale, the Spanish event offers top Spanish titles at the German festival the chance to consolidate their reputations while often producing new discoveries, especially from first-time directors.
Many titles, from a Spanish film industry whose younger directors are highly social conscience and favor art-house, are issue driven. “There’s a search for identity, whether a young trans girl’s exploration of gender identity or young leads to understand the world they live in, or the search for love and a sense pf strangeness, of being a stranger to oneself,” Juan Antonio Vigar, Málaga Film Festival director said of this year’s main Competition.
Following, a brief breakdown of its titles. “20,000 Species of Bees,” (Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren, Spain) The 2023 Berlin Festival best leading performance winner and a major triumph for Cannes Critics’ Week winner (“Chords”) Urresola on her fiction feature debut. “Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s accomplished debut feature treats its eight-year-old protagonist’s gender crisis with care and compassion, but is also attentive to wider familial rhythms and conflicts,” Variety said.
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