At half past nine on Thursday morning, the Verdi Cinemas already had a queue to enter. It is not a usual scene, as anyone who has dropped by their morning sessions knows, when the hall is sometimes occupied only in solitude. But, of course, all the spectators waiting to sit in their seats, many of them sleepy, were attending the first day of the eighth edition of the Barcelona Sant Jordi International Film Festival (BCN Film Fest).
The red carpet has returned to Gràcia for a few days, with entire days of film screenings and visits from actors and directors from all over the world. The BCN Film Fest will screen almost 70 films from this Thursday until Friday, April 26, among which 15 will be world premieres. "Let's make Barcelona shine cinematographically once again," proclaimed a slightly hoarse BCN Film Fest director, Conxita Casanovas, just before the inaugural film began, Casa en flames by Barcelona director Dani de la Orden, a dramatic comedy that explores how much and how badly families know how to love each other.
An ensemble cast, made up of Emma Vilarasau, Maria Rodríguez Soto, Enric Auquer, Alberto San Juan, Clara Segura, Macarena García, and Jose Perez-Ocaña, arrives at a summer house in Cadaquès to spend the weekend with family. It is there where everything ends up exploding, bringing together the different burdens that the characters have been accumulating, of half-truths, betrayals, and insecurities. The trigger that forces them to reunite is the sale of the chalet, as recently seen in Clara Roquet's Libertad (2021), also delving into the psychology of a well-to-do family that spends summers on the Costa Brava.
"I wanted to try to make a film about the darker family dynamics in a poshland environment," explains De la Orden, a space he has acknowledged is not unfamiliar to him, precisely because he has spent his holidays in Begur. Being a mother, but also being a daughter, becomes the cornerstone of the story, with a wonderful Vilarasau who did not hesitate to play "such a contradictory, pathetic, clumsy, manipulative... so motherly character." "I am 65 years old, everything that comes now is a fucking great gift, in life and in the profession," the actress remarked. She is not the only mother who appears in Casa en flames with a Rodríguez Soto who is "getting a doctorate" in playing them, in reference to the coincidence in theaters with Mamífera, also about motherhood and in which she shares the screen with Auquer: "It's a great moment for me."
The third female role falls to a precise Segura who acts as master of ceremonies, even if she has a secondary role, making and unmaking, guiding the characters, with some similarity to her role in the successful play La trena. A contained, even serious character, far from her personality, "she is always joking," as the director recalls about the filming, with long scenes like the dinner one, where they were cold, but also died laughing at Segura's faces.
A fun and tragic film in which family disagreements are not colored, but, above all, it is made with simplicity, without tricks, something not highly valued today, saying a lot without having to make grand gestures, taking advantage of Manel playing in the background. The latest title from the director of Barcelona, nit d'estiu and Barcelona, nit d'hivern has served to kick off a festival where the big star will be the arrival of Meg Ryan. The American actress will visit Barcelona to present her return to romantic comedies with What Happens Later, a genre unfortunately in decline that catapulted her to fame with memorable titles such as You've Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally. Away from the spotlight for years, Ryan returns to the fray with the story of two ex-lovers trapped in an airport during a storm, accompanied by David Duchovny, globally known for the series The X-Files.
He will not be the only big name to parade down Verdi Street, where American director Richard Linklater will also pass through. The director of the trilogy that began with Before Sunrise, starring a very young Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke who have grown older in successive films, will receive the BCN Film Fest Honorary Award. Linklater will present his latest title Hit Man, a comedy applauded in Venice that will close the Barcelona festival.
Also not to be missed are Disco, Ibiza, Locomía by Kike Maíllo with Jaime Lorente and Blanca Suárez, Caída libre by Laura Jou with Belén Rueda and Irene Escolar, Escanyapobres by Ibai Abad with Àlex Brendemühl and Mireia Vilapuig, and the French Daaaaaalí! about the surrealist genius. Special mention for La casa, an adaptation of Paco Roca's comic of the same name starring David Verdaguer and Olivia Molina.