We put the microphone back under the nose of the D’A’s director, Carlos R. Ríos, and ask him to commit himself. If you want to get straight to the point, here’s your itinerary for the festival’s 10 days: the unmissable ones, the must-sees, the most delicious… the director’s ten tens!

Rose of Nevada by Mark Jenkin
Mark Jenkin’s cinema is a cinematic, sensory experience of textures, layers, and sounds that must be enjoyed in a movie theater. The protagonists are two sailors who travel through time. Slow science fiction. Don’t miss the performances of two outstanding young actors: George MacKay and Callum Turner. Wonderful.

Hlynur Pálmason
The great winner of the Talents Award in 2020 with A White, White Day returns to D’A with a double feature, Joan of Arc and The Love That Remains. Iceland’s most renowned director continues to draw stories from an island of 400,000 inhabitants, shaped by the passing of seasons, sincerity, and naturalness. Yet his stories and experiences belong to everyone—or do they…?

Barrio triste by Stillz
One of the most surprising and powerful films of recent years; a work of art about the power of the neighborhood, its youth, and paranormal events, with Arca’s music in the background. Top! Top!

Sucia by Bàrbara Mestanza & Marc Pujolar
Ten years from a chapter in Bàrbara Mestanza’s life, a diary film that brings justice to injustice. A social, judicial, and existential thriller. The fear of silence is confronted with courage, and in Sucia, as in the stage play, the fight is for truth, against being silenced. Last February, the actress and playwright premiered Cutting Off a Foot with a Chainsaw, an uncomfortable and necessary piece about guilt and the limits of repair.

La noche está marchándose ya by Ramiro Sonzini & Ezequiel Salinas
A magnificent tribute to the movie theater and its possible audiences, whoever they may be, and a denunciation of the social and political brutality carried out by certain politicians armed with chainsaws and ultraliberal ideas. The film is a powerful metaphor about states and a cornered society, where irony and eloquence shine as only Argentinians can. Under black-and-white lights and shadows, great songs play: “Qué pasará mañana” by Perales, a discovery, “Corazón yo espero” by Pelusa, and a karaoke-worthy finale with “What Is Love” sung in Spanish by Gary.

Un mundo frágil y maravilloso by Cyril Aris
A feel-good movie with a social undercurrent, portraying a vanished Beirut that no longer is, that no longer exists. A couple in love lets us share their laughter, their lingering conversations at the restaurant table, their love and even suffer the injustices alongside them. Two actors in a state of grace, with immeasurable on-screen chemistry. A celebration of life.

L’enfant bélier by Marta Bergman
Absorbing, thrilling, modern, with a timely and burning subject handled with great precision. The film is intense and vertiginous: the love of a refugee couple in Europe is disrupted by a dramatic event that completely shifts the film’s perspective, plunging us into the inner workings of a police investigation. Outstanding performances make believable what happens at our borders.

Anoche conquisté Tebas by Gabriel Azorín
The lacasinegra collective is one of the most prolific and interesting projects in Spanish cinema, whether working together or separately. Supporting one another, they create unique, unclassifiable, innovative, and suggestive works. Here, Gabriel Azorín delights us with an unclassifiable film: a poetic, mysterious, sensual, and sincere buddy movie, featuring one of the most honest and moving dialogues between two friends in Spanish cinema—a true declaration of love… Attention: this film absolutely must be seen in a movie theater.

Desire Lines by Dane Komljen
The paths of memory, desire, and forgiveness are inscrutable; they can trap and lock you inside a diffuse world, and escaping it is complex and difficult. An ultra-sensory film, deeply tactile, filled with silences, sounds, and sex. A high-voltage, violent, fetishistic film in which nature plays a crucial role.

Moon Safari by Hugo Amoedo Canal and all the short films at D’A!
Recommending 48 short films may seem like a lot, but this is truly a festival within the festival. Tariq Porter, Flor Clérico, and Marc Barceló, with the wise guidance of Carlos Losilla, have crafted a breathtaking selection: a program of short films that are—and will be—among the most relevant in the Catalan and Spanish scene. They also qualify for the Goya Awards. A must!

-Carlos R. Ríos