The film ‘Vida y color’, distributed by Alta Films, and written and directed by Santiago Tabernero, has won the Best Ibero-American Feature Film Award at the recently closed edition of the Miami International Film Festival, which was held between 3 and 12 of March. Previously, she had been awarded the Audience Award at the Seminci de Valladolid, 2005. And she was one of the candidates for the Goya, 2006 edition, for best new director. The other candidates for this Goya were Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal for ‘¡Aupa Etxebeste!’, José Corbacho and Juan Cruz for ‘Tapas’, and Gillem Morales for ‘El inhabitant incierto’. ‘Tapas’ was the one that took the cat to the water.
‘Life and colour’, starring Junio Valverde and Silvia Abascal, shows a Spain of the seventies, without falling into the sadness and bitterness in which other directors join in portraying bygone eras. It is well set and the actors perform their work correctly. The script is a sum of anecdotes that happen to Fede, the protagonist, his sister, his family and neighbors. Without saying anything especially dramatic, he manages to keep the attention and entertain. Overall I would give it a good rating. The underlying theme or the intended message of the film is sometimes not entirely clear, since it seems that it wants to imply that the protagonist has a homosexual attraction for a friend, but then does not deepen or clarify anything of this aspect. After the apparent approaches to subjects that it does not finally deal with, the general sensation is of a certain emptiness. But that’s not why ‘Life and Color’ is a bad movie. The film premiered this year as a Christmas gift, on January 5.
In the same category, ‘7 virgins’, by director Alberto Rodríguez, who has received words of love and hate on blogdecine, was awarded a ‘Special Mention by the Grand Jury for His Extraordinary Vision in Directing’. Another ‘Grand Jury Special Mention’, this time for ‘His Excellency in Outstanding Performances’ by Alice Braga, Wagner Moura and Lázaro Ramos, went to ‘Low City’, by Sergio Machado, Brazil.
The festival was inaugurated with a film that also had a Spanish participation: ‘Lifting de corazón’, by Eliseo Subiela, a fairly weak film that we will talk about in the days before its premiere in Spain. It will be on March 31, with advance screenings at the Malaga Spanish Film Festival.
The jury for the category of Ibero-American feature films in competition at the MIFF was made up of Carlos Bolado, Javier Cámara, and Linda Reisman. The films against which ‘Vida y color’ and ‘7 vírgenes’ were competing were ‘La Sagrada Familia’ (Chile, 99 min), director: Sebastián Campos; ‘The Machine’ (‘A Machine’) (Brazil, 93 min), director: João Falcão; ‘El Rey de San Gregorio’ (Chile, 85 min), director: Alfonso Gazitúa; ‘Orlando Vargas’ (Uruguay, France, 78 min) Director: Juan Pittaluga; ‘Distant News’ (Mexico, 120 min), director: Ricardo Benet; ‘Madeinusa'(Peru, Spain, 100 min), director: Claudia Llosa; ‘Lower City’ (Cidade Baixa) (Brazil, 98 min), director: Sérgio Machado; ‘In Bed’ (Chile, 85 min), director: Matías Bize, ‘Do U Cry 4 Me Argentina?’ (Argentina, 93 min), directed by Bae Youn Suk; ‘How the Hours Go By’ (Argentina, 85 min), director: Inés de Oliveira César and ‘Ángeles del sol’ (‘Anjos Do Sol’) (Brazil, 90 min), directed by Rudi Lagemann.
