Venice Days: María Aparicio’s ‘Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion’ Wins GdA Director’s Award

With this year’s Venice Film Festival drawing to a close, the dishing out of awards has begun.

The Giornate degli Autori jury — headed by Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón — has awarded this year’s GdA Director’s Award and cash prize of 20,000 Euros ($23,000) to Maria Aparicio and Mubi’s Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion (A veces me entra tristeza, otras veces rebelión). The movie follows Eva Bianco as Eva, a woman passing through Madrid alone when she meets Dante (Roger Koza), an Argentine historian researching labor struggles and the work of Juan Bialet Massé.

“A film that portrays the solitude of the present, holding together an intimate dimension and a political charge, inviting us to think about labor, immigration and privilege through a delicate mise en scène built on small gestures rather than big events,” said the jury, which also included Italian director Sara Fgaier and editor Hania Mroué. “We left the cinema deeply moved, by a sadness and a spirit of rebellion that do not oppose one another, but coexist, as two faces of the same disorientation.”

Elsewhere, the Europa Cinemas Label, instituted by a network of European exhibitors with the support of the EU’s MEDIA program, is dedicated to European films and co-productions. The jury for the prize, composed of Maria Gesuato, Vít Janeček, Aisling Kane, and Daniel Tollefsen Altamirano, has crowned Robert Guediguian’s A Woman Today (Une femme aujourd’hui) the winner. The film follows a young finance professional whose life is turned upside down by a violent assault.

“Une femme aujourd’hui powerfully intertwines the intimate and personal with the political and social, using its protagonist’s experience to explore the broader position of women in contemporary society and family life,” ruled the jury. “With empathy but without simplification, Robert Guediguian captures the tensions between apparent freedom, success and persistent social expectations, between professional independence, sexuality, the desire for intimacy, and the need to live life on one’s own terms.”

“Despite the range of themes it embraces, the film maintains a strong narrative drive, energy and tension from beginning to end,” they concluded. “This is a very watchable film, and we feel European audiences will embrace the film warmly.”

Finally, the People’s Choice Award, awarded according to voting by audiences in the Sala Perla and Palazzo del Casinò at the end of each official selection screening, has gone to Nicola Sorcinelli’s Balcanica, which received 76 percent of the votes.

When music is outlawed in Afghanistan, the orchestra conductor Nazar (Babak Karimi) and his tuba-playing son Jalil (Ivar Wafaei) are forced to leave everything behind. Their journey along the Balkan route toward Italy is uncertain, yet it carries the hope of finding a place where they can play again. Along the way, they meet Greta (Mathilda De Angelis), an Italian doctor. Together, the three navigate choices that will change all of their lives.