The 19th Latin American Film Festival in Lleida showed 117 films from 14 different countries

Lleida (ACN) – The Argentine film Por un tiempo (‘For a time’) directed by Gustavo Garzón opened the 19^th Lleida Latin American Film Festival, which ended last weekend. 'Porcelain horse' (Mejor no hablar de ciertas cosas), directed by Ecuador’s Javier Andrade, won the Best Film Award. The opening night started with honorary awards for Spanish actor José Coronado, who had to travel to Buenos Aires the following day for a shooting a film, and the Mexican actor Damián Alcazar. Over a week, a total of 117 films from 14 countries were shown in the western Catalan city, most of them Latin American, while some were from Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. This year, the Festival suffered a 24% reduction in its budget and was forced to remove documentary and retrospective sections, while the official section introduced 10 feature and 10 short films. The Festival recognised Catalan actor Joel Joan’s career and the 5^th  anniversary of the Catalan Film Academy.

The world’s premiere of ‘Por un tiempo’

After the world premiere of Por un tiempo, Gustavo Garzón spoke at the Casa Amèrica de Catalunya, an institution which links Catalonia and Latin America through different events, to talk about his first work as a director and its reception in Lleida. The trailer of the film was shown to start a conversation between the director and film reporter Jaume Figueres.

The film talks about paternity, a theme Garzón thinks he can talk about because of his personal experiences. Gustavo Garzón was born in Buenos Aires in 1955 and has four children, two of them with Down Syndrome. He started acting when he was 20 years old and has achieved recognition and popularity in Argentina throughout the years. At the moment, he has launched Por un tiempo in Spain and is soon going to do so in Argentina. The premiere in Buenos Aires will take place on Tuesday 23^rd April and is going to be on at the cinema as from Thursday 25^th.

The film explains the story of Leandro and Silvina, a young and successful couple who are living the best moment of their lives because of the imminent birth of their first child. However, there will be a radical change in their daily lives. Leandro finds out that he had a daughter in his youth and decides to take care of her. The adolescent’s presence causes problems for the couple and shows unknown differences between them.

About the experience of directing a film, Gustavo Garzón says it was “the happiest professional experience” he has ever had. During the premiere, he realised that the colours were a little bit dull, but he said that he would not change anything, and now he recognises that in Lleida he was so nervous that he forgot to thank everyone for the opportunity to be there.

‘Porcelain horse’, received the Best Movie Award

The Argentinian film competed against other nine films to be chosen as best film at this year’s festival, but finally the winner was Porcelain horse (Mejor no hablar de ciertas cosas), directed by Ecuador’s Javier Andrade. Professionals from different audiovisual disciplines along with film critic Àlex Gorina as president made up the jury.

The festival director, Juan Ferrer, said that a lower budget was inevitable, but the Festival wants to continue growing “without a rising deficit, because a situation like this could threaten its future”. The Film Festival recognised the Catalan Film Academy’s fifth anniversary, and especially its president and actor Joel Joan. It also gave two more special awards to Catalan director Pere Portabella and Catalan actor Pere Arquillué for their creativity in cinema and to Spanish Public Radio Broadcaster (RNE) journalist Teresa Montoro for her career.