The Huesca International Film Festival will pay tribute to Carlos Saura

Saura will collect the Luís Buñuel Awards, while the young actress Adriana Ugarte will receive the Ciudad de Huesca Award at the 42nd edition of the festival. A total of 78 short films will compete in this edition.

The Huesca International Film Festival has announced three of the most important milestones of what will be its 42nd edition, the Luís Buñuel Award, the Ciudad de Huesca Award and the short films selected in its three competitions. The festival that will take place between June 16 and 21 has revealed that this year's tribute awards will go to Carlos Saura and Adriana Ugarte. The Alto Aragonese director will be in his hometown to receive the Luís Buñuel Award, a recognition that has distinguished great names in cinema such as Tavernier, Kaurismaki, Frears or the Taviani brothers and that will finally be collected by the director who has won countless awards at festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice or San Sebastián. The festival already honored Saura in 1991 with the City of Huesca Award but “it is only fair that he receives this recognition, no one like him reflects the spirit of the award and raises so much admiration within the festival,” says Jesús Bosque, director of the contest.

The City of Huesca Award will instead go to Adriana Ugarte, a young actress “with great projection and natural talent” in Bosque's words. An award that thus seeks to bet on the future, a concept linked to the city of Huesca itself and that has been essential when granting the award, as well as its beginnings in the world of short films, the essence of the Festival. The versatile actress who is 29 years old and already has extensive experience in cinema (Cabeza de perro, Combustión), theater (La casa de Bernarda Alba) and television (La Señora, El tiempo entre corazónas), will be in Huesca to collect the award. Adriana and Carlos also have a common link since in 2013, the director of works such as Oh, Carmela! o The First Angelica directed the actress in the play The great theater of the world.

78 short films

The festival has also announced the list of short films selected to participate in the 42nd edition of the festival. There will be a total of 78 works from 26 different countries that will fight to win the Danzante Award in their category. Some selected directors return to the world of short films due to their “greater creative freedom” as confirmed by the co-artistic director, Azucena Garanto.

The International and Ibero-American competitions that are preselectors for the Oscar Awards and which also mark 10 years of this recognition this year (only 4 short film festivals in Spain have it), will have 30 shorts each. In the Ibero-American, in addition to the 13 Spanish films, the strong presence of Brazilian cinematography stands out with 8 titles in competition. The winner of this contest will automatically be eligible for a prize in the international contest, which already has a mostly European selection but with the presence of other filmographies such as the United States or Australia. The country with the largest number of short films is France, but it is worth highlighting the selection of 5 short films from Switzerland.

In the documentary competition a total of 18 titles will be seen (in this category the maximum duration extends up to 40 minutes) and there are works from countries as diverse as Syria, India or Argentina.