- The exhibition will be open from 22 October to 19 November at the San Benito Exhibition Hall
The Valladolid International Film Festival (SEMINCI) presents the exhibition “Traces and Fugues. Spanish cinema at SEMINCI” aimed at giving greater visibility to the creative process behind the production of 16 Spanish films programmed at the 70th edition. The exhibition, officially launched today in the presence of the Councillor for Tourism, Events and City Branding, Blanca Jiménez Cuadrillero, and the director of SEMINCI, José Luis Cienfuegos, will be open to the public at the Exhibition Hall of the San Benito Tourist Office until 19 November.
Curated by set designer and visual artist Ramón Isidoro and the festival director, the exhibition brings together original materials that show the creative process behind the selected works, presenting the research, documentation, planning and production work required to make some of the films that will be screened during the Festival. The printed documents, objects, costumes and materials used in the filming of the 16 selected works, to be screened in the Official Section, the Time of History and Alchemy sections, will give the public an insight into the creative thinking of the directors presenting their films at SEMINCI.
A cardboard figure by a Korean artist represents Marta’s loneliness and absence in Isabel Coixet‘s Three Goodbyes, an adaptation of Michela Murgia‘s book Tres cuencos, making a comeback to SEMINCI for the third occasion, this time opening the festival.
Among the objects on display in this second edition of “Traces and Fugues” are the drawing made by a teenager that marked a turning point for Pere Vilà Barceló in When a River Becomes the Sea and the floor plans of the house along with printed images of the rooms in Fernando Franco’s Subsuelo. The broken headlight of a car and an original firefighter’s suit from France are featured in Lionel, by Carlos Saiz.
Other items on display include the jacket, several magazines and the blond tobacco packets from the period worn by the character Angelitas in Golpes, by Rafael Cobos; while the coats show the horror suffered by refugees in World War II in Frontera, by Judith Colell, and the wine glass, medal and Roman leg transport us to the Roman baths in the representation of the past and present of a group of legionaries and another of young people today in Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes by Gabriel Azorín.
Additionally, David Trueba has donated a scale model, the first edition of the book Blitz (Anagrama, 2015), and a copy of the script of Siempre es invierno, the first adaptation made for the big screen of one of his literary works, a romantic tragicomedy that closes the 70th edition of SEMINCI.
Also noteworthy is Cata’s dress, which represents the catalyst for the protagonist’s transformation following the sudden death of her grandmother in Forastera, by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias. As is the impressive model of the protagonist in Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, the first stop-motion animated film directed by a woman in Spain, by Irene Iborra.
An amulet, the transfers, the images and a fanzine illustrate the reconstruction of Guillermo Fernández-Zúñiga’s personal memory by Candela Sotos in Yrupẽ. Similarly, the books, flag and banner carried by Carolina Yuste and Afioco Gnecco in This Body of Mine, which they both directed, are also on display in the exhibition.
From The Factory and Sex, director María Ruido has selected a wig, a book ,and a video performance as part of the representation of the political class’s manipulation of citizens through the pornographic industry. Ana Serret Ituarte, in turn, presents an audiowalk used in Notes for a Consensual Fiction, her first fiction film.
‘Traces and Fugues’ brings together some real objects that play a fundamental role in the films, such as the rucksack, hat, fishing rod, clapperboard, waistcoat and notebook chosen by Carlos Solano, which are key to the adventure and journey of the protagonists in Leo & Lou.
Finally, Manuel H. Martín and Amparo Martínez Barco have provided a printed and bound storyboard to represent the creative process behind Bella, a representation of abuse and emotional violence through animation and different paradoxes to reach all audiences, which is premiering worldwide at SEMINCI.