The Mostra celebrates three decades

A tribute to Berlanga and Tornatore, a strengthened Official Section and Morocco as a guest country, main exponents of this edition in which the 30th anniversary is celebrated. Coinciding with the Mostra, “Forum TV” will be held, several meetings in which the most important European and Mediterranean television stations will participate.

The director of the Mostra de Valencia, Salomón Castiel, and the deputy mayor of the Valencia City Council, Alfonso Grau, presented yesterday at a press conference the programming of the 30th Mostra de Valencia that will be held
from October 16 to 24.

Alfonso Grau spoke of a clear commitment to a change of dynamics in the festival to make “a more competitive and open Mostra” and advanced the change of dates of the Festival for the year 2011 so that the next edition will be held in October 2010 but the next one is scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2011. With this change of dates the coincidence with other film festivals such as San Sebastián or Valladolid is avoided. He also indicated the intention to increase the municipal financial allocation in future editions to place the Mostra de Valencia among the best film festivals. Alfonso Grau highlighted that, once again, the Ministry of Culture supports the Mostra.

For his part, Salomón Castiel pointed out the tributes to the directors Luis García Berlanga and Giuseppe Tornatore as two of the main bets of this edition, highlighting the presence of the Italian director at the Festival. This is the first time in Spain that a complete retrospective of this director has been organized, which will also include his latest production, Baaria, presented at the last edition of the Venice Film Festival. The central event of the tribute to Berlanga will be the gala that will take place on Saturday, October 17 at the Olympia Theater in Valencia and in which it will be screened in rigorous premiere By the grace of Luis, a feature film directed by José Luis García Sánchez halfway between documentary and fiction and in which an extensive list of Spanish actors participate, including Concha Velasco, José Sacristán, Alfredo Landa and Santiago Segura.

Twelve films in the official section

At the event, the 12 films participating in the official section were presented, among which is the Spanish film Born to Suffer, by Miguel Albalalejo, which will be the inaugural film and will be out of competition. The latest production by Greek director Costa-Gavras also participates in this section. Among these twelve productions the official jury will choose the winners of this edition's awards. The closing film will be the winning feature film of the Mostra Cinema Valencia section. In recent years the Mostra de Valencia has paid special attention to Valencian audiovisual productions with the section called Mostra Cinema Valencia where a large number of productions of different formats participate in the competition (feature films, TV movies, series, documentaries, shorts...). Another of the highlights of this edition will be the screening of Drift, director Ventura Pons' last film.

This year the guest country is Morocco. Films from this country will be shown and, in addition, “we have reached agreements with different Moroccan restaurants in the city so that citizens can enjoy the gastronomy of this country,” said Salomón Castiel.

Among the parallel activities of this edition is the TV Forum, several meetings in which the most important European and Mediterranean television stations will participate. “With this forum we want to prepare the future Mostra market that we will hold in other editions,” Castiel commented. The director of the Mostra highlighted the importance of Carlos Berlanga's exhibition that shows his appreciable pictorial career.

Salomón Castiel emphasized the Valencia Awards competition. A year of Spanish cinema in which the public can participate through the page web voting for your favorite Spanish film. The three winning films will be screened at La Filmoteca.

The jury of the XXX Mostra de Valencia will be chaired by the director, screenwriter and producer Enrique Gabriel, who will be accompanied by the critic Michel Demopoulos, the director Rakkjo Grliç, the actress Farah Hamed, the filmmaker Marie Noëlle, and the directors Ousama Mohammed and Maurizio Sciarra.

Official Section XXX Mostra de Valencia

HARAGAS, by Merzac Allouache (Argelia / France)
SLOVAK, de Damjan Kozole (Slovenia)
BROTHERS, the Igaal Niddman (Israel)
AS GOD COMMANDS, by Gabrielle Salvatores (Italy)
BORN TO SUFFER, by Miguel Albadalejo (Spain)
Inauguration Film
DRIVE, de Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani (Palestina/ Israel)
IBRAHIM LABYADby Marwan Hamed (Egypt)
EDEN TO THE WEST, de Costa-Gavras (France/ Greece/ Italy)
MATTER OF THE HEART, de Francesca Archibugi (Italy)
DOHAWA, by Raja Amari (Tunisia)
I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU, by Cécile Telerman (France)
MAKE ME PLEASURE!, by Emmanuel Mouret (Francia)
MIKRO EGKLIMA, by Christos Georgiou (Cyprus/Greece/Germany)
Movie out of competition