The 21st Sevilla European Film Festival will take place this Nov. 8-16, and Variety has been given an exclusive heads-up on this year’s competition juries that will choose the winners of the Gold and Silver Giraldillos as well as the special judges’ prize and a new award, the Puerta América Award.
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Dedicated specifically to contemporary European film, Sevilla aims to bring the best in European cinematographic culture to the south of Spain for dialogues between the new artists and recognized figures from the industry while also dedicating space to new media for cinematographic expression.
Jurists for this year’s main competition section include British producer David Puttnam, who will chair the jury, Oscar-winning British actor Jeremy Irons, Rome Film Fest artistic director Paola Malanga, French programmer Eva Rekettyei, and French-Algerian director Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”).
Accompanying today’s jury announcements, Sevilla shared details about its new Puerta América Award, granted to one of 16 European films selected to represent their country in the International Film Oscar race that will screen in Sevilla.
According to festival director Manuel Cristóbal, the aim of the new award is to make Sevilla “the springboard for the best European films in the Oscars and to offer a comprehensive vision of contemporary filmmaking on the Old Continent.”
Jurists for the first Puerta América award include Oscar-winning Austrian producer Josef Aicholzer (“The Counterfeiters”), writer Nico Casariego (“Society of the Snow”) and academic Pascalle Dillemann.
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Nine of the Puerta América contenders will screen in Sevilla’s EFA section, dedicated to films shortlisted for the next edition of the European Film Awards. The other seven are spread throughout the festival’s other sections.
Among the 16 titles vying for the inaugural Puerta América Award are Latvia’s animated Annecy winner “Flow” from Gints Zilbalodis, Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle” from Magnus von Horn, Belgium’s “Julie Keeps Quiet” from Leonardo Van Dijl, Georgia’s “The Antique” from Rusudan Glurjidze – which nearly wasn’t allowed to screen at Venice and the U.K.’s “Santosh” from Sandhya Suri.
Several of the Puerta América hopefuls won major awards at this year’s Cannes, including Portugal’s “Grand Tour,” which won a director honor for Miguel Gomes; France’s “Emilia Pérez,“ which won best actress; Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree,” the Grand Jury prize-winner; and Romania’s “Three Kilometers to the End of the World,” which won the Queer Palm.
Other Oscar hopefuls at this year’s fest include Norway’s “Armand” from Ingmar Berman and Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, Czech Republic’s “Waves” from Jiří Mádl; Italy’s “Vermiglio,” which won director Maura Delpero the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival; Hungary’s “Semmelweis” from Lajos Koltai; and Spain’s own “Saturn Return” by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez.
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