‘The Convulsions,’ ‘Lóngquán,’ ‘Wolf Girrrls’ Bound for Spain’s RECLab Primer Test (EXCLUSIVE)
“Longquán: the Dragon Spring,” “The Convulsions” and “Wolf Grrrls” will be joined by other buzzy titles such as “Agrestes” at this year’s Primer Test, an industry centerpiece at the REC Tarragona Film Festival’s RECLab in Spain whose seven works in progress capture some ways how newest talent filmmaking is evolving in Spain.
Running parallel to the Festival, which unspools over Dec. 3-8, Primer Test, RECLab’s works in progress competition, has proved a testing ground for key recent titles from Spain. After coming to RECLab the producers of “30 Souls” found a sales agent and the film was selected for Berlin Panorama. Establiliz Urresola’s “20,000 Species of Bees,” the Berlin Festival 2023 best performance winner, was the first winner of RECLab’s Screening Test, before its Berlin selection. How the film should end was decided after that Screening Test.
Just how that international interface could play out on this year’s section remains to be seen, but several titles hit RECLab with notable momentum.
A memorable winner of Locarno Pro’s Spanish Previews work-in-progress award in August, “Lóngquán: The Dragon’s Spring” weighs in as a hybrid doc-fiction feature marking the feature debut of Catalan Adrià Guxens and playing off a powerfully layered performance by lead actor Junyi.
A social drama and coming of age tale shot with a neo-doc realism and sluiced with great music, the juvenile detention-set “Wolf Grrrls,” from Claudia Estrada Tarascoì, won at the Atlàntida-Mallorca Film Lab. the Filmin Prize granted by the upscale Spanish SVOD player.
Another coming of age tale, “Agrestes,” on which word of mouth is good, marks the first feature of Bàrbara Farré whose “La última virgen” scooped the Catalan Academy’s Gaudí Award for Best Fiction Short Film and the top Golden Biznaga at the Málaga Film Festival. It also has sturdy backing, a sign of market potential: A Contracorriente Films will release “Agrestes” in Spanish theaters; Filmin; 3Cat and Movistar Plus + have pre-bought TV rights.
Primer Test’s pix in post are all first fiction features and sometimes the first feature of their producers. Scoring on Friday night Tallinn’s International Works in Progress Audience Award, David Gutiérrez Camp’s “The Convulsions” morphs from family drama to what will be taken as symbolic fantasy.
That is itself is a sign of one way the newest Spanish cinema is evolving. “The fiction/non-fiction play is still present, as well as the use of non-professional actors, but one of the main growth axes of Spanish cinema is the creation of special atmospheres and an opening up to genre. Our principal intention is to show international visitors the broad diversity of themes and styles which new Catalan and Spanish talent work with,” Javier García Puerto, director of Tarragona’s REC Festival, told Variety.
RECLab also bears testimony to just how vibrant and still innovative Spain’s arthouse co-production scene is becoming, driven in by inter-regional, pan-regional alliance, international partners.
Combinations, even on these smaller films, can be intricate and innovative. “The Convulsions,” for example, is produced by Imy Productions in Toulouse, Montpellier’s Bapla Films, Auca Films in Barcelona, Mallorca’s Cinètica Produccions Mallorca and Timber Films in Seville, and is backed by France’s Ariège department of Occitanie, between Toulouse and the high Pyrenees and by the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion.
“This is the first feature fiction ever co-produced in the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, with Occitanie, Catalonia, and Balearic Islands production companies and talent. We would love to explore these territorial and cultural bridges far from the standard axis Paris-Madrid,” producer Joan Carles Martorell told Variety.
“The modern-day Spain of autonomous regions maps out distinctive regions which, if well used, gives us a scenario of almost co-production, leveraging the efforts and resources of each region and enriching projects. It’s key for a film’s solid construction. Companies which manage to tie down an international co-production have taken a giant step forward to reaching the international circuit, which is where RECLab especially collaborates,” said García Puerto.
There’s been across-the-board growth in the films coming to RECLab, he argued. “In early years, we made space for films which were much more indie, fiction-documentary hybrids. We were part of the Catalan new wave, welcoming first films by Elena Martí, Diana Toucedo, Meritxell Colell, Carla Simón, Liliana Torres, and so on. Little by little, we’ve diversified in themes and styles, drilling down on Spain’s deep creative diversity – from the most indie arthouse to creative docs and genre pics. From 2021, we’ve opened up to co-productions and are visited by talent from other countries.”
A closer look at this year’s titles:
“Agrestes,” (Bàrbara Ferré, Spain)
Produced by Mimosa Produce, Sumendi Filmak, Lágrima Films, Kabak Films, Mamma Team.
Atenea, an orphan, is taken in by a family and everything seems to change. For the first time, she imagines herself belonging somewhere. But after the threat of a future that does not include her, she will do the unimaginable in order to stay forevermore. “With ‘Agrestes,’ I wanted to draw near to a moment: Your body shifts, awakens to unfamiliar sensations, but you still lack the language to name them, and you find yourself suspended in that in-between space – no longer a child, not yet a woman,” Farré told Variety.
“Anxo,” (David Hernández, Spain)
Produced by Adarme Visual, Colectivo Mu.
Anxo, a 58-year-old welder joins a Vigo steelworkers strike. As the days go by, tensions with the police grow and there’s no end in sight to the strike. “Shot in Galician, produced by a small team with few resources, this is a film mixing documentary and fiction. Its spare script evolved as the film shot and was edited, with a creative freedom encouraging improvisation and experimentation,” Hernandez said.
“The Convulsions,” (“Les éclats,” David Gutiérrez, France, Spain)Produced by Imy Productions, Bapla Films, Auca Films, Cinètica Produccions, Timber FilmsA psychological drama starring Inès Fehner (“Midwives”). In the Pyrenees, a couple try to live self-sufficiently in terms of food and energy. When one daughter suddenly suffers unexplained fainting spells, their choice is shaken. Then stranger events occur. “It starts like a naturalistic tale of a family living in the mountains but evolves to reach a completely different territory, one where a character can magically disappear without leaving no trace,” said director Gutiérrez.
“Lóngquán: The Dragon Spring,” (“Lóngquán: El Manantial del Dragón,” Adrià Guxens, Spain)
Produced by Pausa Dramàtica Films and La Charito Films
In the New Year of the Dragon, Junyi, a young Catalan of Chinese descent, gets a call from his mom in China that his grandmother has suddenly fallen ill and wants to see him. Junyi’s trip to Lóngquán in deep China will transform his sense of roots and identity. Providing one of the emotional high points at Locarno’s Spanish Previews, the production has been bulwarked recently by a pre-sale to national pubcaster RTVE and an ICAA Spanish film agency grant. “With ‘Lóngquán: The Dragon Spring,’ we wanted to open a space rarely explored in Spanish cinema: the search for identity of a young Catalan man of Chinese descent,” said producer Olga Doganoc.
“Mind Control,” (“Influjo Psíquico,” Alejandra Cardona, Spain)
Produced by Zaragoza’s Milyuna Historias and to receive a market screening at the Zaragoza Film Festival on Nov. 27, doc-feature “Mind Control” explores the phenomenon of “lawfare,” the political weaponization of judicial systems, through the the unprecedented case of ex-Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, convicted for “psychic influence.” “I wanted to expose a Latin American reality still unknown to many: how the law can be turned into an instrument of political persecution. A conviction for ‘mind control’ feels taken from fiction and echoes that thin line between the real and the impossible that we often associate with magical realism,” Cardona told Variety.
“Radio Pati, a Truly Meaningful Festival,” (Radio Pati, un cicle de concert molt valuós,” Pau Bacardit, Spain)
Produced by Debut Films, Vayolet Films.
From Barcelona’s Debut, which focuses largely on LGBTQ films, and Vayolet, the label of Cannes Cinef winner Ian de la Rosa (“Victor XX”), a “Veneno” writer and director of “Iván & Hadoum,” now in post. While Anna (30) receives radiotherapy after undergoing breast cancer surgery, her friend Elies hosts a series of concerts in her courtyard. The initiative captures the public imagination and broadens. “In this film we reflect together about family, friendship, illness, and above all, the uncertainty of the future, but we try to do so from one of the things that has united us since we were children: music,” said Bacardit.
“Wolf Grrrls,” (“Salen Las Lobas,” Claudia Estrada , Spain, Belgium)
Produced by Alba Sotorra SL, Novak Prod, Vampire Films
Luna, a misunderstood teenager is locked up in a juvenile detention center from which she plans to escape with her newfound friends to perform in a trap music contest. Director Estrada was inspired by the real-life case of her own sister. “The film explores belonging. We all need to be part of a community that loves you for who we are,” ever enterprising producer Sotorra noted at Tallinn’s International Works in Progress presentations last week.
Running parallel to the Festival, which unspools over Dec. 3-8, Primer Test, RECLab’s works in progress competition, has proved a testing ground for key recent titles from Spain. After coming to RECLab the producers of “30 Souls” found a sales agent and the film was selected for Berlin Panorama. Establiliz Urresola’s “20,000 Species of Bees,” the Berlin Festival 2023 best performance winner, was the first winner of RECLab’s Screening Test, before its Berlin selection. How the film should end was decided after that Screening Test.
Just how that international interface could play out on this year’s section remains to be seen, but several titles hit RECLab with notable momentum.
A memorable winner of Locarno Pro’s Spanish Previews work-in-progress award in August, “Lóngquán: The Dragon’s Spring” weighs in as a hybrid doc-fiction feature marking the feature debut of Catalan Adrià Guxens and playing off a powerfully layered performance by lead actor Junyi.
A social drama and coming of age tale shot with a neo-doc realism and sluiced with great music, the juvenile detention-set “Wolf Grrrls,” from Claudia Estrada Tarascoì, won at the Atlàntida-Mallorca Film Lab. the Filmin Prize granted by the upscale Spanish SVOD player.
Another coming of age tale, “Agrestes,” on which word of mouth is good, marks the first feature of Bàrbara Farré whose “La última virgen” scooped the Catalan Academy’s Gaudí Award for Best Fiction Short Film and the top Golden Biznaga at the Málaga Film Festival. It also has sturdy backing, a sign of market potential: A Contracorriente Films will release “Agrestes” in Spanish theaters; Filmin; 3Cat and Movistar Plus + have pre-bought TV rights.
Primer Test’s pix in post are all first fiction features and sometimes the first feature of their producers. Scoring on Friday night Tallinn’s International Works in Progress Audience Award, David Gutiérrez Camp’s “The Convulsions” morphs from family drama to what will be taken as symbolic fantasy.
That is itself is a sign of one way the newest Spanish cinema is evolving. “The fiction/non-fiction play is still present, as well as the use of non-professional actors, but one of the main growth axes of Spanish cinema is the creation of special atmospheres and an opening up to genre. Our principal intention is to show international visitors the broad diversity of themes and styles which new Catalan and Spanish talent work with,” Javier García Puerto, director of Tarragona’s REC Festival, told Variety.
RECLab also bears testimony to just how vibrant and still innovative Spain’s arthouse co-production scene is becoming, driven in by inter-regional, pan-regional alliance, international partners.
Combinations, even on these smaller films, can be intricate and innovative. “The Convulsions,” for example, is produced by Imy Productions in Toulouse, Montpellier’s Bapla Films, Auca Films in Barcelona, Mallorca’s Cinètica Produccions Mallorca and Timber Films in Seville, and is backed by France’s Ariège department of Occitanie, between Toulouse and the high Pyrenees and by the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion.
“This is the first feature fiction ever co-produced in the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, with Occitanie, Catalonia, and Balearic Islands production companies and talent. We would love to explore these territorial and cultural bridges far from the standard axis Paris-Madrid,” producer Joan Carles Martorell told Variety.
“The modern-day Spain of autonomous regions maps out distinctive regions which, if well used, gives us a scenario of almost co-production, leveraging the efforts and resources of each region and enriching projects. It’s key for a film’s solid construction. Companies which manage to tie down an international co-production have taken a giant step forward to reaching the international circuit, which is where RECLab especially collaborates,” said García Puerto.
There’s been across-the-board growth in the films coming to RECLab, he argued. “In early years, we made space for films which were much more indie, fiction-documentary hybrids. We were part of the Catalan new wave, welcoming first films by Elena Martí, Diana Toucedo, Meritxell Colell, Carla Simón, Liliana Torres, and so on. Little by little, we’ve diversified in themes and styles, drilling down on Spain’s deep creative diversity – from the most indie arthouse to creative docs and genre pics. From 2021, we’ve opened up to co-productions and are visited by talent from other countries.”
A closer look at this year’s titles:
“Agrestes,” (Bàrbara Ferré, Spain)
Produced by Mimosa Produce, Sumendi Filmak, Lágrima Films, Kabak Films, Mamma Team.
Atenea, an orphan, is taken in by a family and everything seems to change. For the first time, she imagines herself belonging somewhere. But after the threat of a future that does not include her, she will do the unimaginable in order to stay forevermore. “With ‘Agrestes,’ I wanted to draw near to a moment: Your body shifts, awakens to unfamiliar sensations, but you still lack the language to name them, and you find yourself suspended in that in-between space – no longer a child, not yet a woman,” Farré told Variety.
“Anxo,” (David Hernández, Spain)
Produced by Adarme Visual, Colectivo Mu.
Anxo, a 58-year-old welder joins a Vigo steelworkers strike. As the days go by, tensions with the police grow and there’s no end in sight to the strike. “Shot in Galician, produced by a small team with few resources, this is a film mixing documentary and fiction. Its spare script evolved as the film shot and was edited, with a creative freedom encouraging improvisation and experimentation,” Hernandez said.
“The Convulsions,” (“Les éclats,” David Gutiérrez, France, Spain)Produced by Imy Productions, Bapla Films, Auca Films, Cinètica Produccions, Timber FilmsA psychological drama starring Inès Fehner (“Midwives”). In the Pyrenees, a couple try to live self-sufficiently in terms of food and energy. When one daughter suddenly suffers unexplained fainting spells, their choice is shaken. Then stranger events occur. “It starts like a naturalistic tale of a family living in the mountains but evolves to reach a completely different territory, one where a character can magically disappear without leaving no trace,” said director Gutiérrez.
“Lóngquán: The Dragon Spring,” (“Lóngquán: El Manantial del Dragón,” Adrià Guxens, Spain)
Produced by Pausa Dramàtica Films and La Charito Films
In the New Year of the Dragon, Junyi, a young Catalan of Chinese descent, gets a call from his mom in China that his grandmother has suddenly fallen ill and wants to see him. Junyi’s trip to Lóngquán in deep China will transform his sense of roots and identity. Providing one of the emotional high points at Locarno’s Spanish Previews, the production has been bulwarked recently by a pre-sale to national pubcaster RTVE and an ICAA Spanish film agency grant. “With ‘Lóngquán: The Dragon Spring,’ we wanted to open a space rarely explored in Spanish cinema: the search for identity of a young Catalan man of Chinese descent,” said producer Olga Doganoc.
“Mind Control,” (“Influjo Psíquico,” Alejandra Cardona, Spain)
Produced by Zaragoza’s Milyuna Historias and to receive a market screening at the Zaragoza Film Festival on Nov. 27, doc-feature “Mind Control” explores the phenomenon of “lawfare,” the political weaponization of judicial systems, through the the unprecedented case of ex-Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, convicted for “psychic influence.” “I wanted to expose a Latin American reality still unknown to many: how the law can be turned into an instrument of political persecution. A conviction for ‘mind control’ feels taken from fiction and echoes that thin line between the real and the impossible that we often associate with magical realism,” Cardona told Variety.
“Radio Pati, a Truly Meaningful Festival,” (Radio Pati, un cicle de concert molt valuós,” Pau Bacardit, Spain)
Produced by Debut Films, Vayolet Films.
From Barcelona’s Debut, which focuses largely on LGBTQ films, and Vayolet, the label of Cannes Cinef winner Ian de la Rosa (“Victor XX”), a “Veneno” writer and director of “Iván & Hadoum,” now in post. While Anna (30) receives radiotherapy after undergoing breast cancer surgery, her friend Elies hosts a series of concerts in her courtyard. The initiative captures the public imagination and broadens. “In this film we reflect together about family, friendship, illness, and above all, the uncertainty of the future, but we try to do so from one of the things that has united us since we were children: music,” said Bacardit.
“Wolf Grrrls,” (“Salen Las Lobas,” Claudia Estrada , Spain, Belgium)
Produced by Alba Sotorra SL, Novak Prod, Vampire Films
Luna, a misunderstood teenager is locked up in a juvenile detention center from which she plans to escape with her newfound friends to perform in a trap music contest. Director Estrada was inspired by the real-life case of her own sister. “The film explores belonging. We all need to be part of a community that loves you for who we are,” ever enterprising producer Sotorra noted at Tallinn’s International Works in Progress presentations last week.