Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
The film, Las herederas, directed by Marcelo Martinessi, will receive its award at the 66th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
This production from Paraguay with European and American co-production will receive a Sebastiane Latino award which seeks to reward the best Latin American LGBTI film of 2018 and is presented by GEHITU, the Basque association of gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals.
The jury of the 6th Sebastiane Latino Award made this decision because “in Las Herederas its director, Marcelo Martinessi, chose to lend visibility to a mature lesbian couple in order to tell the story of Chela’s personal liberation.” “By doing so, he shows that sexual-affective diversity in Paraguay is not recognised and protected by the legislator in Paraguay. This reflection turns it into a denunciation: the legal non-recognition of LGBTI couples means that the spouse has no rights when their partner is ill, imprisoned...,” they point out.
Furthermore, they highlight that “the co-production of three Latin American and three European countries makes it possible to create powerful films, like that of Marcelo Martinessi and his team, in any part of the world.”
Also, “the quality of the narrative and composition of Las herederas shows that peer groups, like the one in this film, or all-female casts, with almost zero male presence, have neither a negative nor a positive effect on the final outcome.”
They also recognise “a screenplay and artistic work which narrates the liberation of a mature middle-class woman with a simplicity that disguises a complicated plot. The protagonist represents with enormous subtlety those women who are brought up to put the desires and needs of others (parents, husbands, children...) before their own. This means that they are finally locked into those relationships. And, on using a lesbian of conservative education and tastes, it forces us to accept a bold pirouette in the narration on setting it, at least, three challenges: shaking off the left-wing conventionalisms of her LGBTI circle, the right-wing versions harboured by her social class, and liberating her desire beyond ageist prejudice.”