Because it turns 70, Spain’s Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid — the Seminci — refuses to look again.
As a substitute, the nation’s second-oldest movie pageant, operating Oct. 24–Nov. 1, could be very a lot forward-facing — whereas reaffirming its historic humanist DNA whereas opening its doorways to contemporary voices, broader audiences and evolving trade realities.
“We didn’t desire a nostalgic version,” says Seminci’s director José Luis Cienfuegos. “It’s a luminous version, in motion — a pageant of filmmakers and for filmmakers.”
With 225 titles and 137 premieres (together with 104 Spanish, 29 world, three European and one worldwide), the seventieth Valladolid Pageant, greatest identified in Spain because the Seminci, stands as certainly one of Europe’s most sturdy auteur showcases.
This 12 months’s version gathers international heavyweights — Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Lav Díaz, Kelly Reichardt, Pietro Marcello, Ildikó Enyedi, Christian Petzold, László Nemes and Gianfranco Rosi — alongside an invigorated era of Spanish filmmakers.
Auteur-Pushed, Provocative Edge
“Below Cienfuegos’ path, Valladolid has gained a extra auteur-driven and provocative edge in its movie choice,” notes Antonio Saura, CEO of Madrid-based arthouse-crossover gross sales outfit Latido Movies.
That power defines the 2025 lineup. The official competitors brings 24 titles, amongst them world premieres from Spain’s Rafael Cobos, the Goya-winning co-writer of Alberto Rodríguez hits “Marshland” and “The Plague,” now debuting as a characteristic director with the thriller “Golpes.”
Additionally vying for the Golden Spike is Fernando Franco with “Subsuelo,” a psychological drama marking the return of the filmmaker whose debut “The Wounded” received the Particular Jury Prize at San Sebastián.
Carlos Saiz, in the meantime, competes with “Lionel,” an emotional street film a couple of father–son relationship, produced by Spain’s Icónica Producciones in co-production with France’s Promenades Movies.
Different Spanish titles embrace David Trueba’s “All the time Winter,” this 12 months’s closing movie, and Judith Colell’s “Frontera,” a Banijay’s Diagonal TV-produced thriller set in Spain’s publish Civil Warfare. In complete, the pageant will host 13 world premieres of Spanish movies.
Longtime pageant favourite Isabel Coixet opens the version with “Three Goodbyes” (Italy–Spain), tailored from the late Michela Murgia’s novel “Tre Ciotole.” Half mid-life reflection, half meditation on meals and reminiscence, the movie marks Coixet’s third Seminci opener after “The Bookshop” (2017) and “It Snows in Benidorm” (2020).
Worldwide heavyweights add additional status: “Silent Pal” by Enyedi, “The Chronology of Water” by Kristen Stewart, “Woman” by Shu Qi, “Sound of Falling” by Mascha Schilinski, “The Blue Path” by Gabriel Mascaró, and Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet,” screening out of competitors as a particular occasion.
For the pageant’s director, coherence is vital. Seminci, he says, stays “a programmed and curated pageant, not a container” — an area the place filmmakers really feel they belong.
Two Spikes of Honor add to the celebration: French actress-filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve (“Father of My Kids,” “Issues to Come”) and Spanish actor Luis Callejo (“The Captive,” “The Snow Woman”) will each be honored for careers that bridge inventive imaginative and prescient and viewers enchantment.
All the time Winter
Credit score: Quim Vives
Sturdy Spanish Cinema Presence
For Spain’s homegrown movie sector, Seminci stays a touchstone. Its 19 Spanish options and 13 shorts this 12 months showcase a nationwide cinema diversifying in tone and ambition.
The pageant factors to generational renewal. Filmmakers similar to Carlos Solano (“Leo & Lou”), Ana Serret (“Apuntes para una ficción consentida”) and Irene Iborra (“Olivia y el terremoto invisible”) intention to mix creativity with accessibility, supported by a constellation of indie producers boosting Spanish cinema’s rebirth.
That steadiness between artwork and viewers, Cienfuegos argues, defines what Seminci stands for. Radical experiments can coexist with crowd-pleasers — similar to “The Trainer Who Promised the Sea,” a 2023 pageant discovery that turned a home box-office shock throughout his first 12 months on the helm.
Its inventive but pragmatic nature additionally defines Valladolid’s function as a spot of discovery platform, a status auteurs’ hub simply weeks after San Sebastián — and a bridge for awards-season publicity.
Roots in Humanism
Based in 1956 as a spiritual movie week, Seminci developed into Spain’s bastion of socially aware cinema. Its roots in humanism — from Rossellini to Ken Loach — endure via up to date themes of migration, id, gender and ecology, explored in sections similar to Punto de Encuentro – reserved for movies with potential for important business success – and Tiempo de Historia, geared toward non-fiction productions.
“Seminci was a gateway for realism and an area for debate even throughout the dictatorship,” Cienfuegos says. “That’s a part of its DNA.”
That legacy of engagement nonetheless defines Valladolid immediately, holding Seminci very important as certainly one of Europe’s most socially-aware auteur festivals.
A Pageant for the Subsequent Era
Past the display screen, Seminci continues to spend money on schooling and viewers improvement. Two of Spain’s main movie colleges — Madrid’s ECAM and Catalonia’s ESCAC — obtain Honorary Spikes this 12 months for his or her function in nurturing new expertise. That generational focus extends to the Young4Film community, an European initiative devoted to constructing bridges between creators and audiences.
“You possibly can’t program Seminci with out understanding its historical past,” he provides. “Data is what permits us to maintain transferring ahead.”
A Late-Season Hub
Parallel to its inventive programming, Seminci has expanded its skilled dimension with the Merci Impartial Movie Market, the La Meseta improvement lab and the Europa Cinemas Viewers Lab. These areas flip Valladolid right into a late-season hub for trade networking and technique.
“We’ve constructed a strong basis round auteur movie,” says Cienfuegos. “Now we’re including new generations.”
That evolution, Saura provides, captures why Valladolid issues a lot to Spain’s movie neighborhood: “Valladolid has lengthy been a really snug and genuinely helpful pageant for the trade — that’s a uncommon steadiness.”
Because the Seminci-Valladolid Movie Pageant steps into its eighth decade, it stands as each a custodian of cinema’s conscience and a catalyst for its renewal.
Three Goodbyes
Greta de Lazzaris
