Programmers' Picks: Hebe Tabachnik

Saturn Return

The big winner at the 2024 Malaga Film Festival, where it received awards for Best Film, Direction, and Editing. It’s an unconventional biopic about Los Planetas, a rock band from the ’90s, that survived the very narrow path between dazzling success and complete disaster and produced the album that not only defined a generation but changed the music scene in Spain forever.

Igualada

It is unusual to find life stories as inspiring and transformative as that of Afro Colombian Francia Márquez, a political leader and activist who learned to subvert attacks on her ethnic origin, her social class, and her gender to fight for equality, freedom, and social justice.

The Extortion

Alejandro, an airline pilot, hides a secret that puts his career in jeopardy. When agents of the Intelligence Service discover him and begin to blackmail him, the pilot, played by the superb Guillermo Francella (The Secret in Their Eyes, The Clan), enters a world of intrigue and corruption in this high-octane thriller up in the skies and across the Atlantic.

Rioja, Land of the Thousand Wines

Take a mouthwatering tour through the whole Rioja winemaking process with testimonies of winemakers, sommeliers, award-winning enologists, and restaurateurs from La Rioja. This documentary is a sumptuous invitation to enjoy the surprising variety and delicious secrets behind Spain’s most well-known wine.

Holy Mother

In the 9th century, a 17-year-old nun becomes an abbess. Given the task of repopulating and Christianizing the border territories in conflict with the Moors, she is determined to fulfill her mission of challenging everyone. This tale from an almost forgotten past becomes a painful reminder of the challenges women still face in the world a thousand years later.

Sujo

Sujo’s childhood is marked by devastating events that test his morals when he is given the chance of breaking free from an unwanted criminal heritage. Sujo is a humanistic and hopeful tale of alternative paths to violence—not always easy, not always clear, but even if so slightly, maybe possible.

Memories of a Burning Body

Director Antonella Sudasassi (The Awakening of the Ants, Best Ibero American Film at SIFF 2019) exalts the body of mature women and their sexuality in the broadest of senses so everyone, regardless of gender identity or age, can question their own notions of pleasure and desire. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2024 Berlinale Panorama section.

Through Rocks and Clouds

Feliciano, an eight-year-old alpaca shepherd elated because Peru has a chance to qualify for the 2018 World Soccer Cup, finds his quiet world in peril when a mining company threatens the life of his community. The magnificence of this part of the world and the resilience of its rightful inhabitants are evidently clear, but so is their fleeting and extremely fragile existence.

Valentina or the Serenity

Valentina, a seven-year-old Mixtec girl, has learned that her father died in a river accident. She does not understand the full meaning of this news and, determined to keep her father’s presence alive, she will turn to the magic of her imagination to confront her grief and soften the pain of his absence.

Close Your Eyes

When a leading actor in a movie vanishes without a trace, the director’s life is changed forever. Facts and fiction collide in Victor Erice’s new masterpiece, a provocative tale of the mighty communion between cinema and life.