María Aparicio’s Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion has taken one of the key honors at Giornate degli Autori as awards begin rolling out near the close of this year’s Venice Film Festival.
The jury for Giornate degli Autori, headed by Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón, awarded the GdA Director’s Award to Aparicio for the Mubi film, whose Spanish title is A veces me entra tristeza, otras veces rebelión. The honor comes with a cash prize of 20,000 Euros, or $23,000.
The film stars Eva Bianco as Eva, a woman moving through Madrid on her own. During that passage, she encounters Dante, played by Roger Koza, an Argentine historian whose research focuses on labor struggles and the work of Juan Bialet Massé.
In its statement, the jury described the film as “a film that portrays the solitude of the present,” noting the way it holds “an intimate dimension and a political charge” together while inviting reflection on “labor, immigration and privilege.” The jurors also singled out Aparicio’s approach to mise en scène, saying the film is built on “small gestures rather than big events.”
Simón’s jury, which also included Italian director Sara Fgaier and editor Hania Mroué, said it left the screening “deeply moved” by the film’s emotional duality. The panel added that the sadness and rebellion evoked by the work “do not oppose one another, but coexist, as two faces of the same disorientation.”
Europa Cinemas Label goes to Robert Guediguian
Elsewhere in the Giornate awards lineup, the Europa Cinemas Label went to Robert Guediguian’s A Woman Today, titled Une femme aujourd’hui in French.
The Europa Cinemas Label is dedicated to European films and co-productions and was instituted by a network of European exhibitors with support from the EU’s MEDIA program. This year’s jury for the prize was composed of Maria Gesuato, Vít Janeček, Aisling Kane and Daniel Tollefsen Altamirano.
A Woman Today centers on a young finance professional whose life is upended by a violent assault. In its ruling, the Europa Cinemas Label jury said the film “powerfully intertwines the intimate and personal with the political and social,” using the protagonist’s experience to examine “the broader position of women in contemporary society and family life.”
The jury praised Guediguian for approaching those tensions “with empathy but without simplification,” pointing to the film’s exploration of apparent freedom, success, social expectations, professional independence, sexuality, the desire for intimacy and the need to live life on one’s own terms.
Despite the breadth of those themes, the jury said the film sustains “a strong narrative drive, energy and tension from beginning to end.” The panel called it “a very watchable film” and said it felt European audiences would “embrace the film warmly.”
Balcanica wins the audience vote
The People’s Choice Award went to Nicola Sorcinelli’s Balcanica, which received 76 percent of the votes.
The prize is determined by audience voting in the Sala Perla and Palazzo del Casinò at the end of each official selection screening.
Balcanica begins with music outlawed in Afghanistan. That forces orchestra conductor Nazar, played by Babak Karimi, and his tuba-playing son Jalil, played by Ivar Wafaei, to abandon everything. Their uncertain journey takes them along the Balkan route toward Italy, carrying the hope of finding a place where they can perform again.
Along the way, Nazar and Jalil meet Greta, an Italian doctor played by Mathilda De Angelis. Together, the three characters face decisions that will alter the course of their lives.
The trio of awards gives Giornate degli Autori a broad early awards profile at Venice this year: Aparicio’s politically charged portrait of solitude took the juried directing prize, Guediguian’s drama was selected by the Europa Cinemas Label jury, and Sorcinelli’s migration story emerged as the audience favorite.