The 68th San Sebastian International Film Festival is currently running in the Spanish city where our friend Roser Granell Zafra is enjoying the rich program of the event.
Roser Granell Zafra is a Spanish translator specialised in subtitling. She started working as a subtitler for film festivals such as SSIFF in 2014 and fell in love with cinema even more. Eager reader and movie lover since her childhood, she never thought she would end up doing what she loves the most: watching films all day long.
Roser is currently attending the 68th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, runnning from September 18-26, 2020 where 19 films are presented in official selection. Among them, François Ozon’s Summer of 85, which has received the 2020 Cannes Film Festival label, just like True Mothers by Japanese director Naomi Kawase. Matt Dillon’s The Great Fellove and Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are are also presented as special screenings as part of this official selection. Besides, other sections showcase curated movies such as the New Directors section, Horizontes Latinos or the yummy Culinary Zinema section.
Our friend Roser is delighted to share with us – as she did on her blog – her reviews on two specific titles she has enjoyed: True Mothers and The Recipe for Success.
True Mothers (Dir. Naomi Kawase, Japan – Official Selection)
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who claims to be the child’s biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.
Let’s find out what our friend Roser has thought of the film:
Maybe I am not the most appropriate one to write about cinema, for all I know about it I have learnt it during my seven-year-long career as a translator and subtitler. Nevertheless, I really enjoy sharing my views and feelings when I watch a film, either at home or at the cinema, and encourage friends and family to enjoy as much as I did with it.
This year, against all odds, I am attending San Sebastián Film Festival (SSIFF) and I felt excited when I knew Naomi Kawase’s new film was part of the Official Selection. I learnt about her some years ago, when in the Semana Internacional de Cine of Valladolid (Seminci) she presented “An”. I enjoyed every single bit of it (and I was hungry every time I saw a dorayaki being made), so I was really looking forward to see her new creation.
In “True Mothers”, a married couple with an adopted child live their lives, with its good and not so good situations, until little Asato’s biological mother shows up demanding them to give her son back.
Naomi Kawase’s style, half documentary half fiction, gives off a very special vibe to the story and it feels real even if it is not. It portrays motherhood from two different perspectives: the adult woman who desires having a child when she cannot have it, and the young high school girl who would like to keep her baby boy but family and society does not allow it, for it is considered a shame. Its hearty style warms you inside out, and the simplicity that surrounds such a complicated story makes it flow smoothly. Besides, the Japanese landscapes and nature itself play an important part in the film, for life unfolds alongside with it (something most Japanese creators usually point out in all types of creative expressions, from literature to painting and fotography).
Toronto said it, Cannes did too, and San Sebastián affirms it: Kawase is always a safe bet.
The Recipe for Success (Dir. Óscar Bernàcer – Culinary Zinema)
Ricard Camarena bases his cuisine on Valencia’s local vegetable production. His constant search for harmony between flavours has seduced the critics and crossed borders. Alongside Mari Carmen Bañuls, the brain behind the management of their restaurants, the two form an indissoluble team which have overcome great adversity to achieve success, vouched for by two Michelin stars and the recent National Gastronomy Prize. The couple are enjoying their most balanced moment. Balanced? The Covid-19 outbreak has thrown them up against a hitherto unheard-of challenge: to reopen their restaurants with the uncertainty of the “new normal”. Heedless of the pandemic, the vegetable garden continues its natural growth cycle and offers the chef a new horizon of flavours.
Agains, let’s find out what our friend Roser has thought of the film:
One of the most keenly anticipated sections of San Sebastian Film Festival is Culinary Zinema, specialised in cooking and food. Even though this year has been significantly reduced, Culinary Zinema keeps supporting this kind of multisensory art.
This time, one of the films talks about Spanish chef Ricard Camarena and his cooking, focused on the fertile region of Valencia.
In the beginning, it was supposed to be a documentary about the 2018 Spain’s National Gastronomical Award winner and his prosperity and success, but it ended up being a story about how he faced a difficult and uncertain situation in order to keep carrying on with the business without losing its original essence.
In Spain, people had to face a lock-down starting in March that paralysed our rushed and selfish way of life. For this Valencian chef, the most important consequence of closing down all his restaurants and bars located in the capital of river Turia was the following: those vegetables he used to transform into two-Michelin-stars dishes kept on sleeping in their soil bedding a longer time than usual, transforming into something different and unknown in a way.
Nevertheless, those changes did not stop Camarena and his team. When the moment arrived to open kitchens again in the so-called “new normal”, they had to rethink new dishes with what was left in the pantry and try out what flourished in their trusted garden.
