Javier Marco’s “Face to Face” (“A la cara”), the spin-off from a 2021 Goya successful quick, was one of many large winners at this yr’s RECLab in Tarragona, Spain which is celebrating its tenth anniversary by doing what it does greatest: Innovation, which questions lots of the usually set-in-stone conventions of festivals. 

Additionally amongst winners at RECLab, a part of the REC – Tarragona Intl. Movie Competition, had been “Jone Batzuetan,” by Sara Fantova, a director on “This Is Not Sweden,” and “Lady Bites Canine,” from Armand Rovira (“Letters to Paul Morrissey”).

“L’homme Abissal o Phaeophytamón,” by Marina Wagner, an “experimental Gothic story” as she places it, received the Málaga Work in Progress Award. 

Unveiled at RECLab in true post-production – with out color-grading, nor soundwork nor digital results – the function “Face to Face” picks up however reworks the fundamental premise of Marco’s quick: Pedro, middle-aged, unshaved, dowdily dressed, opens the door of his home to Lina, a well-known TV interviewer. She asks if a room in his dwelling is offered. However the true motive for her coming is for Pedro to learn out aloud to her face one in every of his latest Web feedback about her: “You deserve what occurred to you. I hope you kill your self too, f***ing bitch. If you need, I’ll enable you to.”

When he apologizes, the function takes a unique flip to the quick, constructing to a transferring finale.

Celebrating 10 Years

A candidate for A-Fest play, “Face to Face” seems like one of many standouts of this yr’s RECLab. Its prize, nevertheless, by most fest requirements, is very uncommon: not money nor in-kind providers however a screening with an actual public who reply a name of “Can You Preserve a Secret?” attending with out realizing what movie they’ll see and leaving cell telephones within the entrance. Prompted by a compère, they react to what they’ve watched. 

Prior Screening Check winners soak up “20,000 Species of Bees,” a Berlinale main efficiency laureate for Sofía Otero, and SXSW world premiere “Mamífera.”

Headed by Javier García Puerto, REC Competition and RECLab director and in addition a notable programmer at Tallinn Black Nights Competition, over its first decade, RECLab has centered on first and second options, constructed across the rigorously curated Primer Check, a pix-in-post showcase. 

Its highlights over time soak up “Ana by Day,” the debut of Andrea Jaurrieta whose “Nina” proved a standout at Malaga this yr; Meritxell Colell’s “Con el viento,” a basis stone of the most recent Catalan cinema; and “Julia Ist,” the primary function from Elena Martín, whose “Creatura” performed Cannes 2023 Administrators’ Fortnight. 

10 RECLab pearls, taking in these titles and in addition Diana Toucedo’s doc hybrid “Thirty Souls” (“Trinta Lumes”), had been made out there over the summer time on VOD service panorámica, a VOD service specializing in a brand new era of Spanish filmmakers. A few of the titles can be found as soon as extra from Dec. 19 via Jan. 19, 2025. An exhibition at this yr’s occasion additionally served to elucidate what RECLab had achieved in its first decade.    

Primer Check has additionally constructed up a community of worldwide specialists invited to display the movies. This yr’s visitors embody SXSW marketing consultant Jim Kolmar, Berlinale selector Ana David and Locarno choice committee member Daniela Persico.

It additionally supplies invaluable perception for filmmakers. At REC, “we acquired the recommendation and help that we wanted, at his second of maximum fragility which is modifying, simply earlier than closing once you assume you might have misplaced the main target,” mentioned Valérie Delpierre, producer of “Summer season 1993 and “20,000 Species of Bees.”

“Primer Check helped us to broaden and enrich the modifying course of on ‘Cork,’” concurred its director, Mikel Gurrea. 

What Units RECLab Aside

Now, nevertheless, REC-Lab is driving into ever extra out-of-the-box experiment. 

Launched in 1984 with Rotterdam’s Cinemart and solid right into a market phenomenon from the late ‘80s by the late, nice Wauter Berendrecht, over the subsequent three a long time co-pro boards turned market cornerstones as the expansion of nationwide movie subsidies methods in Europe and Latin America allowed producers to have the ability to search for overseas companions with an affordable probability of scoring co-financing. 

Lately, nevertheless, there are such a lot of boards that the trade simply can’t sustain. Any new entrant has to return in with one thing totally different. RECLab does so by coming in on trade constructing specializing in two axes: Individuals and audiences. 

By way of its Primer Check strand, the place 10 new pix in put up are offered to an viewers, RECLab nonetheless encourages worldwide co-productions amongst its attendees. 

However its distinctive format fosters open and significant conversations across the offered tasks, argued former Venice Critics Week head Anette Dujisín, Primer Check co-ordinator. 

“By prioritizing worldwide methods over fast pitch-style classes, Primer Check allows individuals to interact in deeper, extra impactful discussions,” Dujisín famous. “This inclusive and interactive method permits trade specialists to construct on one another’s suggestions, leading to collaborative insights that reach past transactional outcomes like gross sales or competition placements.”

RECLab’s New Initiatives 

Three new initiatives additional this purpose. Overseen by Marika Kozlovska, a Cinema do Brasil marketing consultant, RECPush focuses “on private connections first, encouraging producers to get to know one another past their skilled roles. This method sparks real relationships and lays the inspiration for significant collaborations, setting us aside from different trade occasions that always prioritize tasks over folks,” she mentioned. Worldwide producers have been sourced from Finland, North Africa, the Czech Republic and Portugal, as an illustration, who be part of Spanish producers in actions from regional dances to pottery workshops. “It’s the alternative of traditional pace relationship and rather more human,” mentioned García Puerto. 

RECMatch groups indie creators, corresponding to Burnin’ Percebes with venture “Royal Movies,” with mainstream actors seeking to broaden their profession:  this yr Alvaro Cervantes (“Loopy About Her”) and the now Madre-based Dominican Laura Gómez 

“We invite the actors after which make a name for tasks, then match them, make, or as one of many individuals name it, ’a reverse casting,’” García Puerto defined.

One other new initiative, RECVision, spearheaded by Jana Wolff, noticed worldwide specialists in viewers creation brainstorm with the leaders of native initiatives. These took in Granollers’ Younger Cineclub Crida Edison, a cineclub programmed by its latest era of members; Nadir, an audiovisual workshop for teenagers and younger college students, from Eloi Sánchez; Transhumant, an itinerant cinema, displaying movies in hamlets south of the Pyrenees; and Victoria & Savoy, a movie program of classics and up to date auteur titles for faculties college students primarily based out of the Ebro area. 

“There aren’t too many examples of buildings which advise on and enhance tasks that work immediately with audiences,” García Puerto commented. 

He added: “Just about each competition helps new tasks, helps the creation of extra movies however that raises a big query: Who’re going to see them?”   

RECLab 2024 Awards: Profitable Movies

Screening Check Award

“Face to Face,” (A la cara,” Javier Marco, Pecado Movies) 

In “Josephine,” which world premiered at San Sebastian’s 2021 New Administrators strand, Marco made a quietly affecting debut in regards to the serendipitous encounter of two solitary souls delivered with a meticulously dowdy mise-en-scène, top-notch perfs and a measured screenplay. From what was seen at RECLab, Marco seems set to ship once more with a story of two egotists– a TV star interviewer, an web troll – treading a troublesome path to redemption.  

Worldwide Deluxe Award 

“Jone, Generally,” (“Jone, Batzuetan,” Sara Fontova, ESCAC Estudios)

Throughout Bilbao’s Semana Grande, Jone lives her past love with Olga, as her father’s Parkinson’s sickness worsens. A Basque-language coming of age and household story “Jone, Generally” marks the primary function from Bilbao-born Sara Fantova, an Escac alum cherry-picked to direct three episodes of “This Is Not Sweden.” The movie is produced by the Sergi Casamitjana-led Escac Estudios (“Salve, María”) and Amania Movies, headed by director David Pérez Sañudo (“Ane is Lacking,” “The Final Romantics”).  

Nationwide Deluxe Award

“Lady Bites Canine,” (Armand Rovira, From Outer House)

A “Creation from a humorous, punkish perspective and with a excessive formal high quality,” Rovira has mentioned, calling “Lady Bites Canine” “one half auteur style, one half mockumentary.” The story of a movie crew which tracks in 16mm the day-to-day of a lady, Xia He, who’s a serial killer of canine abusers, it’s the most recent from Rovira, recognized for “Letters to Paul Morrissey,” a previous RECLan standout. 

Málaga Work in Progress Award

“L’homme Abissal o Phaeophytamón,” (Marina Wagner, La Impostura Movies)

Introduced at Sitges’ WomanInFan in October and most definitely an “experimental Gothic story,” as Wagner places it, shot in black-and-white utilizing nineteenth century lens in an vintage digicam, to compose a movie made up of stills. Set in 1879, and narrated through letters, it activates a younger man who, dying, is distributed to his sister who oversees a laboratory that utilizing algae to deal with badly wounded. She gives her brother the prospect of everlasting life.