- SEMINCI’s director, José Luis Cienfuegos, and Serge Toubiana, member of the International Jury, presented the award to the filmmaker at the Calderón Theater
In its penultimate day, the 70th Valladolid International Film Festival (SEMINCI) has honoured French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve with the festival’s Honorary Spike. The award ceremony took place at the Calderón Theater, where SEMINCI’s director, José Luis Cienfuegos, presented the accolade to Hansen-Løve, accompanied by Serge Toubiana, former director of the Cinémathèque Française and the film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, and a member of this year’s International Jury.
Cienfuegos praised Hansen-Løve’s body of work as one of the most influential in contemporary European cinema. ‘There are echoes of her films, whether intentional or not, in many of the Spanish filmmakers who are currently shaping the paths of our cinema: Carla Simón, Jaume Claret, Elena Martín Gimeno or even Rodrigo Sorogoyen with Eden: Lost in Music,’ he noted.
Toubiana, who has known Hansen-Løve for thirty years, shared: ‘Like me, Mia was a film critic at Cahiers du Cinéma. I quickly realised she was destined to make the leap into filmmaking, and in less than twenty years she has directed eight feature films. What Mia does, film after film, is to try to build a body of work. It’s a very ambitious undertaking for a young woman, but I believe it’s the right path.’ He also highlighted the recognition Hansen-Løve has received both within and beyond France, having been awarded at international festivals such as Berlin, Toronto, New York and Cannes.
Taking to the stage to receive the Honorary Spike, Hansen-Løve expressed her gratitude to SEMINCI and to Spain for the warm reception her films have always enjoyed. ‘This beautiful award I receive tonight is not something I take as something I deserve, but as an incentive that will give me the strength to continue with this indefinite quest I began with my first film and that I hope will follow me throughout my life,’ she said.
The filmmaker took the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of her profession. ‘Every film I start is like a battle. There’s the race for funding, which is the most visible part, but behind it hides a struggle against market demands, pressure, fear and doubt. I’ve been fighting for three years to finance my next project. It’s an ambitious, period film—an epic with a female heroine. And there are moments when I’ve felt as if I were hitting an impenetrable wall; I’ve cursed my job, my script, cinema and myself. I share this simply to say that what we call a filmmaker’s body of work, which might seem a solid and serene structure, can also become something fragile and turbulent,’ she confided to the Valladolid audience.
The gaze of intimacy
Celebrated for her intimate portrayals of family, love and the beauty of everyday life, Mia Hansen-Løve is one of the most significant filmmakers in contemporary European cinema. She began directing after working as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma and acting in Olivier Assayas’s Late August, Early September (1998) and Les Destinées (2000). Her filmography includes All Is Forgiven (2007), which won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best Debut; The Father of My Children (2009), awarded at the Cannes Film Festival; and Things to Come (2016), which earned the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. Other acclaimed works include Goodbye First Love (2011), Eden (2014), Maya (2018), Bergman Island (2021) and One Fine Morning (2022).
‘Culture, art and intellectual life play an essential role in the personal growth of her protagonists, who often turn to some artistic vocation as a way to move forward after a loss,’ Cienfuegos observed before presenting the award. He added: ‘Even if you’re not living through the same stage of life as her characters, they speak of universal experiences that resonate deeply. And they do so without excess or melodrama, with a disarming naturalness.’
In the same vein, Toubiana remarked: ‘Her films are very intimate and personal, yet they speak to everyone. She has found that tone, that precision, that intimacy that allows all of us to see ourselves reflected in her cinema.’ He concluded: ‘What I love about her films is the light, the emotions, the restlessness. It’s a cinema about the search for happiness, something we cannot live without.’
Following the presentation of the Honorary Spike, Hansen-Løve attended a special screening of her debut feature Tout est pardonné (All Is Forgiven). Premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and nominated for the César Awards, the film established Hansen-Løve as an essential voice in 21st-century European cinema, already showcasing the hallmarks that would define her later work.
Tout est pardonné explores father–daughter relationships through the story of Pamela, who, haunted by her father’s abandonment during her childhood, returns to Paris seeking answers about the reasons behind his departure. With tenderness, Hansen-Løve observes these characters marked by tragedy in a moving reflection on loss and the possibility of forgiveness, seen through the most human of lenses.
The screening took place at Sala Fundos, where the filmmaker introduced the film, bringing her participation in the 70th SEMINCI to a close.