The Spanish film ‘Viva’, which is the feature directorial debut of actress Aina Clotet, and the Mexican film ‘Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul’, the first fiction film by Bruno Santamaría Razo, will compete in the Critics’ Week, the parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival focused on discovering new filmmakers, the organization announced Monday.
With a screenplay signed by Clotet herself and Valentina Viso, ‘Viva’ is a “bittersweet” comedy, according to the general delegate of the Critics’ Week, Ava Cahen, when she unveiled in a video message the selection of films that will make up the 65th edition of this event, which will run from May 13 to 21.
Shot in Catalan, the film tells the story of Nora, a woman who takes back control of her life after overcoming breast cancer.
She thus takes on professional challenges that surpass her and also dynamites her future family project with Tom, her lifelong partner, by giving in to the desire she feels for Max, a man much younger and freer than she is.
When Max goes abroad, Nora starts a mad race to avoid her greatest anguish: being alone and facing the fear of death, the real fear that hides this insatiable hunger for life.
The cast, which includes names such as Guillermo Toledo, is headed by Clotet herself in the role of Nora, while Naby Dakhli plays Tom and Marc Soler plays Max.
Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building’, on the other hand, takes place in the early nineties in Mexico City around Bruno, a boy who turns 11 and has increasingly intense feelings for his best friend, Vladimir.
The importance of competing at the Cannes Film Festival: Prestige for films
The news that his father has HIV has a sudden impact on his life and his family tries to chase away the pain by singing and dancing. Thirty years later, Bruno films and reimagines the memory of that experience and what he did not fully perceive as a child.
The cast includes Jade Reyes, Sofía Espinosa, Lázaro Gabino, Eduardo Ayala, Valeria Vanegas and Anuar Vera, among others.
In total, the 2026 edition of the Critics’ Week will feature seven feature films in competition, five of which will be debut films.
This competition only selects first or second films by directors from all over the world in order to encourage the discovery of new voices.
The other films selected were ‘A Girl Unknown’, by Chinese filmmaker Zou Jing; ‘The Station’, by Scottish-Yemeni Sara Ishaq; ‘Dua’, by Kosovar Blerta Basholli; ‘La Gradiva’, by French Marine Atlan; and ‘Tin Castle’, by French-Irish Alexander Murphy.
The section will open with the French film ‘In Waves’ (Phuong Mai Nguyen) as the opening film and will close with the French film ‘Adieu monde cruel’ (Félix de Givry), reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
