FICX Gijón Opens 64th Edition With James Gray's 'Paper Tiger'

The 64th Gijón International Film Festival (FICX) opened on Nov. 13 with James Gray's "Paper Tiger" and runs through Nov. 20 in the northern Spanish city. Gray is a repeat opener: his previous feature, "Armageddon Time," also launched the festival's 2022 edition. Peter Farrelly's "I Play Rocky" closes the event on Nov. 20.

The main competition, Albar, fields 21 features. It stacks prize winners from this year's major festivals: Clio Barnard's "I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning" (Cannes Directors' Fortnight), Grant Lee's "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" (Berlin Silver Bear) and Visar Morina's "Shame and Money" (World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury prize at Sundance). Valeska Grisebach's Cannes Jury Prize winner "The Dreamed Adventure" also competes — Grisebach took Gijón's best feature prize back in 2006 with "Longing."

What does Gijón offer that bigger festivals don't? Director Alejandro Díaz Castaño frames it as a deliberate two-track strategy. "On one side we bring big names from the international industry, as we've done in previous editions," he said. "We also bring top-Spanish talent and well-established filmmakers such as Albert Serra or Hal Hartley."

The festival has a decades-long record as a springboard for Spanish filmmakers. Oliver Laxe ("Sirât"), Jonás Trueba ("The Other Way Around") and Carla Simón ("Alcarràs") are all closely linked to Gijón: Laxe and Trueba showed their first works there, and Simón had her first retrospective at the festival.

Díaz Castaño said this year's competition resists tidy categorization. "I think we ended up having many unclassifiable features, which do not fully fit into more structured selections because of their strong auteurist component," he explained. "Here at Gijón, we are really into that mix of genres, those hybrids that tend to live on the margins."

Hong Sang-soo, a three-time FICX best feature winner, returns to Albar with "Nowhere to Lay My Eyes," which won the best director prize at Locarno. Radu Jude, who took Albar's top prize in 2023 with "Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World," competes with "The Diary of a Chambermaid," premiered at Cannes Directors' Fortnight. László Nemes' "Moulin," Jeanne Herry's "Garance," Angela Schanelec's "My Wife Cries" and Mads Mengel's Karlovy Vary winner "The Guest" round out the field.

Nicolas Pariser's Venice contender "One Minute to Midnight" screens out of competition. Variety's Jay Weissberg wrote: "The Italian coda is sweet, allowing Pariser to redeem the concept of love from the cynicism of a world wary of romance." Of the closer, Variety's Owen Gleiberman called "I Play Rocky" "a cleverly crafted crowd-pleaser, all designed to tap into the love of 'Rocky' that has never gone away."

Retueyos, a strand for second and third features, opens with Pierre Le Gall's "Flesh and Fuel," winner of Cannes' Queer Palme Révélation prize. It includes 14 titles, among them Venice Orizzonti winner "Un détour par Diane" by Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni.

The Premiere section, expanded to 16 titles, brings Spanish premieres to Gijón. Gregg Araki returns with the Sundance title "I Want Your Sex," starring Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde — his first visit was in 1996, and FICX mounted a retrospective of his work in 1999. Other premieres include Céline Sciamma's essay film "Tutti Frutti," Jia Zhangke's "Torino Shadow," Cédric Kahn's "A Place to Heal," Ulrike Ottinger's vampire fantasy "The Blood Countess" with Isabelle Huppert, and Mohammad Rasoulof's 39-minute "Sense of Water." Hong Sang-soo also presents "The Day She Returns," which opens in U.S. theaters next month.

Five San Sebastián titles arrive through the Cross Roads initiative, linking the two festivals less than two months apart: Fred Cavayé's "Les Mirsérables," Jesse Steinberg's "The Debut" and Javier Ruiz Caldera's "5 More Minutes" among them. FICX Pro, the industry wing run with the Asturias Paraíso Natural Film Commission, and the Semilleru development lab continue to back local Asturian and Spanish professionals.

"What we aim to do is to bring the city together and push together and rally support behind the festival," Díaz Castaño said. "The festival becomes like a hub where everyone tunes in to connect and where everyone can find their place." With ticket sales strong and collaborations expanding, Gijón keeps betting that hybrid auteur cinema and local talent development can grow in the same room.