Georgian film 'Beginning' achieves the Golden Shell

Dea Kulumbegashvili, with the award for best director for 'Beginning'. Javier Hernández

At the beginning of the San Sebastián festival, the Georgian film

by the debutant Dea Kulumbegashvili, already sounded like an award thanks to the media noise that accompanied it since it was selected for the canceled Cannes festival and after its screening in Toronto, where won the critics award.

Her pass at the Zinemaldia caused a division among the spectators who either loved or hated her.

The jury chaired by Luca Guadagnino had no doubt:

Not only has it won the Golden Shell, but it has also won the awards for best director, screenplay (written by the director and by Rati Oneli) and the Silver Shell for best actress for its protagonist, Ia Sukhitasvili.

She plays Yana, the wife of the leader of a community of Jehovah's Witnesses in Georgia who are attacked - this has happened in recent years in the Caucasian republic - during their weekly meeting.

Little by little, Yana watches her world collapse as she begins to confront her husband and discuss his authority.

Kulumbegashvili is the fourth filmmaker to win the Golden Shell - the third in this century - and after studying film at Columbia University (New York), she already competed in 2014 at Cannes with a short film.

For this reason,

was to premiere in luxury in May at La Croisette, before becoming one of the 16 titles that have participated in San Sebastián with the Cannes label.

• The eternal love of a son for his murdered father

• Viggo Mortensen: “Every role, every adventure adds up.

  I've had good luck "

About her film, the 34-year-old filmmaker explained in her press conference: “The film places the characters at a point of no return;

they go through history letting themselves be carried away by its energy, but without stopping to reflect on what they do.

For this reason, it seemed important to me to force the viewer to observe their actions, so that they could not look the other way in situations of discomfort ”.

And with her long shots she underlined that formal hardness that surrounded this raw drama.

“Beauty and violence cannot be understood one without the other, both are part of life.

And you have to show, even if it's a general shot, what happens to her: if I'm following a woman's intimacy, I couldn't not include rape, an event that changes her life. "

Thomas Vinterberg's

quartet of leads from

actors Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe, shared the award for best actor.

The film plays with genres through the misadventures of four high school teachers who decide to start teaching a little drunk, without being drunk.

In San Sebastián, Mikkelsen, who was already squeezed by Vinterberg in

and who has become a popular face thanks to his participation in the Bond saga,

and the

series

, summed up the film with talent: “More than talking about the effects of alcohol reflects our difficulty in embracing life.

If you play darts with a couple of beers, you have a good time;

if we take seven, we probably won't be able to hit the board;

and if we don't take any, we probably don't feel like playing ”.

The jury's special prize went to

Julien Temple's

with its fantastic journey through the life of Shane MacGowan, leader of the band The Pogues, and the best cinematography went to the Japanese Yuta Tsukinaga for

All the winners who passed through the stage recalled how exciting it is to see films in theaters with an audience, the immense effort involved in holding a festival at this time and mentioned the teams that could not attend San Sebastián, as they did, for example ,

by the Mexican Fernanda Valadez, who won the Horizontes Latinos award.

The winner of the New Directors section was

by Isabel Lamberti, who has immersed herself in the Madrid neighborhood of Cañada Real to show the day-to-day life of a family on the verge of being evicted.

With

by the Portuguese Catarina Vasconcelos, winner in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, and

by Eliza Hittman, RTVE-Otra Mirada award, a list of honors marked by quality, recognized by the various juries of the different sections, of the cinema made by women.

50% capacity

If the start of the 68th edition of the contest was marked by the sanitary protocol required by the pandemic, which left only 40% of the Kursaal seats available, and 50% of the rest of the rooms (40,000 tickets were available, far from the 150,000 of 2019), and due to the presence of 16 films with the Cannes label, six of them in the official section, the final conversations have focused more on the storm that has ravaged the city for three days: the little red carpet that remained after The restrictions due to the covid-19 ended up ruined by the rain and the wind.

The French filmmaker of American origin Eugène Green did not see it, after being expelled from the contest last Wednesday night.

Green refused to put on the mask after the organization caught his attention up to five times during the screening of his film

There were no doubts from the festival.

Yes there were to include a series - there were up to seven in various sections - in the Official contest, but the door has been left ajar.

Honors 2020

Golden Shell: 'Beginning', by Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Special Jury Prize: 'Crock of Gold', by Julien Temple.

Silver Shell for Best Director: Dea Kulumbegashvili, for 'Beginning'.

Silver Shell for best actress: Ia Shukitashvili, for 'Beginning'.

Silver Shell for Best Actor: M. Mikkelsen, T. Bo Larsen, M. Millang and L. Ranthe, for 'Druk'.

Best Screenplay: 'Beginning', by Dea Kulumbegashvili and Rati Oneli.

Best Cinematography: Yuta Tsukinaga, for 'Any Crybabies Around?'

New Directors Award: 'The Last Spring', by Isabel Lamberti.