The BCN Film Festival kicks off with many films and stars and a certain air of "normality"

The celebration these days of the BCN Film Festival brings to the city more than just a good handful of films: it brings an air, a breeze, an atmosphere, a feeling of "normality". For a long week, Barcelona prepares to work that small miracle in this era of having live cinema screens, spectators in the theaters, and the hustle and bustle of stars and directors in the city. The presence of figures such as Johnny Depp, Isabelle Huppert, Fernando Trueba, or Fernando Colomo, who accompany with their presence the films they present at the BCN Film Festival, will vaccinate us these days with the pleasure (perhaps, placebo) of living in an active and culturally attractive city.

The official section hosts almost twenty premieres: it opens with the English film Promising Young Woman, by Emerald Fennell, which is nominated for five Oscars (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, Carey Mulligan), and closes with the French comedy Between Roses, by Pierre Pinaud. Among them, titles such as Minamata, by Andrew Levitas (which comes with its protagonist, Johnny Depp); the Italian The Poet and the Spy, by Gianluca Jodice, with the central figures of Gabriele D'Annunzio and actor Sergio Castellitto; Mama Weed, an extravagant police film by Jean-Paul Salomé starring that great actress, both freckled and sinful, Isabelle Huppert; the terrible drama about the massacres in Burundi titled Small Country, by Eric Barbier; the charming story by Philippe Falardeau titled My Salinger Year, starring the Audry Hepburn-esque Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andie MacDowell; Forgotten We'll Be, Fernando Trueba's film about the Colombian doctor Héctor Abad Gómez; Wife of a Spy, by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, or out of competition, the documentary Paolo Conte, Via Con Me, by Giorgio Verdelli, about the extraordinary Italian musician.

In the Cinema amb Gràcia section, Fernando Colomo's latest comedy, Polyamory for Beginners, a playful entanglement starring Karra Elejalde and Toni Acosta, is presented. And in this section, the Catalan film The Passion According to Pep Amores, a comedy directed by Júlia Girós, Pol Picas, and Nina Solá, or the British comedy Blithe Spirit, by Edward Hall, are also screened.

In the Zona Oberta section, of special interest is the programming of a medium-length film directed by David Selvas and Taida Martínez, titled En mis manos; the first chapter of the series Moebius, directed for TV3 by Edurad Cortés, and a drama about Cuban political prisoners titled Plantados, by Lilo Vilaplana. In addition to the review of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, and Charulata, a classic of Indian cinema directed by Satyajit Ray based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore.

A review of the work of Charles Chaplin and some classic authors and works of Japanese cinema, such as Kurosawa's Rashomon; Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp, or titles by Kitano, Koreeda or Anh Hunt Tran will complete the program.

The director of the Festival, Conxita Casanovas, spoke a few days ago of her enthusiasm for bringing cinema out of that twilight zone it has been in for more than a year… So let the sun shine.