Catalan presence at Berlin Film Festival

At this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, in its 68^th edition, a total of five films with Catalan collaboration will be aired.

Isabel Coixet’s ‘The Bookshop,’ which recently won awards in Spain’s coveted Goya awards and Catalonia’s Gaudi awards, will make its international premiere at the Berlin festival with a special gala.

At the Goya awards, ‘The Bookshop’ won three prizes, including the highest one: the Best Film award. Yet Coixets’s film also earned her the awards for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. In the Gaudi awards, the film won best director, best art direction, and best screenplay, among others.

‘The Bookshop’, courage against the odds

Coixet’s film tells the story of a woman who decides to open a bookshop in a small seaside village in Britain, despite the opposition of her neighbours, especially those belonging to the upper class. Florence Green, the film’s main character, faces the prejudices and envy of her neighbours. Only courage will help her to carry on.

The most daring category

In the Forum section of the prestigious event, Catalan director Meritxell Colell will be making her debut with ‘Con el Viento’ (With the Wind). A Catalan co-production, ‘Theatre of War’, directed by Lola Arias, will also feature in the category, termed by the Berlinale as the most daring in the festival.

Two of them will compete in the Panorama section of the Berlinale: 'Enfermedad del Domingo’ (Sunday’s Illness) by Ramón Salazar, and ‘Thirty Souls' by the Galician director based in Barcelona, Diana Toucedo, who spent most her film studies in the Catalan capital. 'Sunday's Illness' is produced by two Catalan firms.

‘Summer 1993’

In last year’s Berlinale, Carla Simón’s self-inspired debut ‘Estiu 1993’ (Summer 1993) won two awards, among them the Best First Feature Award.