The South Korean film wins the award for Best Feature Film and Nikola Vukcevic wins the award for Best Director for ‘Obraz’. The Montenegrin director also wins Best Screenplay
The Golden Dragon for Best Documentary goes to ‘Portugal ’74’. For the first time, a special mention is awarded, which goes to the Turkish documentary ‘Kut Al Amara’
The Youth Jury Award, sponsored by the Carné Joven de Aragón, goes to the Italian feature film ‘Campo de batalla’ by Gianni Amelio. The Silver Dragon for Best Actor goes to Pääru Oja for ‘Vari’, and Best Actress to Spain’s Beatriz Arjona for ‘Solos en la noche’.
Actress Nastassja Kinski will receive the Saraqusta 2025 Award this afternoon at the closing gala, in recognition of her professional career in historical audiovisual media. She joins this year’s other award winners, Juanjo Artero and Ana Turpin.
‘Seou Spring’, a South Korean film directed by Kim Sung-su, has won the Golden Dragon Award for Best Feature Film at the 5th edition of the Saraqusta Film Festival, co-organized by the Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan. The film is a political drama based on real events that took place in South Korea in 1979 following the assassination of President Park and the conflict that arose among military leaders after the attempted coup. Usha Jadhav, actress, producer, and president of the jury for this fifth edition, pointed out during the awards ceremony, which took place at the Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta Foundation, that the film was awarded “for its quality in all artistic departments and the production value in telling the story in the best way possible.”
The audiovisual, cultural, and historical professionals who accompanied Jadhav on the jury responsible for selecting the winners of the Saraqusta Film Festival were Mirella R. Abrisqueta, producer and director; Arturo Méndiz, producer and director; Lucía Álvarez, historian and professor; and Miguel Ángel Sabadell, writer, popularizer, and member of the editorial committee of Muy Historia.
The Golden Dragon for Best Documentary went to the French film Portugal ’74, directed by Paul Le Grouyer and Bruno Lorvão. The jury chose to award it “for its intelligent and successful blending of archive footage, testimonies, and a very precise narrative that reconstructs the moments of political change that restored democracy to Portugal.” The film is set in the early 1970s, when Portugal was still under the authoritarian regime of Europe’s longest-running dictatorship, and explains how a group of military officers devised an unprecedented coup d’état that led to what became known as the Carnation Revolution.
For the first time, the festival awarded a special mention to a film outside the Dragons category. It went to the Turkish documentary ‘Kut Al Amara’ by Koray Demir, “for its research and careful use of visual material that brings us closer, from a novel point of view, to a confrontation between empires that marked the Middle East,” said Jadhav. The documentary shows an important episode of the First World War: the conflict between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire in 1916.
Montenegro’s film Obraz won two Silver Dragons: Best Screenplay and Best Director for Nikola Vukcevic. “The director excels in how he manages to maintain the film’s pace in its mix of genres and how he explores existential questions and human values in the relationship between the protagonists, which include children,” the jury said of Vukcevic. As for the screenplay, Jadhav explained as spokesperson that “it achieves something very difficult: putting human and universal conflicts into words in the midst of the violence of war. It also shows how to overcome social and religious differences to save innocent lives.”
As for the cast, the Silver Dragon for Best Actor went to Pääru Oja for Vari, an Estonian film directed by Jaak Kilmi in which Oja gives, as the jury emphasized, “a great performance bringing to life Juhan Liiv, a poet and detective suffering from the early stages of schizophrenia who solves murder cases in 1890s Estonia.” The Silver Dragon for Best Actress went to Spain’s Beatriz Arjona “for maintaining a comical tone and tenderness even in the most complicated moments experienced by the characters in ‘Solos en la noche’.” Guillermo Rojas‘ film takes a historical comedy approach to the fears of a group of friends, labor lawyers, during the February 23 coup attempt in Spain.
The Young Jury Prize, awarded thanks to Carné Joven de Aragón, went to the Italian feature film ‘Battlefield’ by Gianni Amelio, which tells the story of two army doctors, friends since childhood, who work in a military hospital where seriously wounded soldiers arrive every day from the front, as World War I is about to end.
‘Solos en la noche’ (Spain), ‘Vari’ (Estonia), ‘Obraz’ (Montenegro), ‘Seoul Spring’ (South Korea), and ‘Battlefield’ (Italy) were the five feature films nominated to win the dragons at the fifth edition of the Saraqusta Film Festival. In the documentary category, the competitors were ‘Mil leyendas, un grial’ (Spain), ‘El recuerdo’ (Chile), ‘Antonio, el bailarín de España’ (Spain), ‘Portugal ’74’ (France), and ‘Kut Al Amara’ (Turkey).
Six of the ten productions submitted to the fifth edition of Saraqusta Film Festival have won awards, making this the year with the most widely distributed awards. “This year, the selection committee worked very carefully to ensure that the audiovisuals in competition were of high quality, and this list of winners reflects that. We have enjoyed films and documentaries that recount important events in history with great documentation, production, direction, and acting,” said José Ángel Delgado, director of Saraqusta Film Festival.
INCREASE IN ACTIVITIES, ATTENDANCE, AND IMPACT
This edition has grown in terms of both activities and attendance. In addition to the usual program of other editions (press conferences, round tables, audiovisuals from Panorama Saraqusta, and documentaries and feature films in competition), there was a more extensive day of special screenings on Saturday, April 26, featuring four titles (‘El florido pensil’, ‘El río que nos lleva’, ‘Ataúdes blancos’ and ‘Bartolomé Bermejo. El despertar de un genio’) and the Plaza del Pilar as the venue, where ‘Gladiator’ was enjoyed free of charge and outdoors to mark the 25th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s film, an event that attracted a large audience.
In addition, for the second consecutive year, Aragonese documentaries were screened outside of the competition, which were shown every morning at the Caesaraugusta Theater Museum. “The previous edition was very well attended, and this year we have repeated the event thanks to the work of directors Marta Horno, Isabel Aparicio, Eduardo de la Cruz, José Alberto Andrés Lacasta, and Erik Salvador. We want the festival to be a city project and for cinema, culture, and history to be accessible to everyone, which is why we will continue to support screenings open to the public, such as Aragonese documentaries or special events like the one we experienced with ‘Gladiator’, which brought together more than 400 people in such a special place as the Plaza del Pilar,” said José Ángel Delgado.
The festival director gives a “very positive” assessment of this year’s event, with more than 4,000 people attending the activities, exceeding last year’s figures, 20% more tickets and individual reservations, twice as many passes sold, and almost 300 mentions in the regional, national, and international press since the edition was announced, showing that the festival now occupies a prominent place at the regional, national, and international levels. We have opened up to new audiences, and Saraqusta’s relevance beyond our borders has also grown thanks to the attendance of professionals from other places.”
The digital community has also grown, with a 35% increase on X, Facebook, and Instagram compared to the previous edition, and with users from countries as diverse as the United States, Chile, Italy, the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Turkey. Throughout this week of the festival, around 400 posts have been made, which have obtained more than 60,000 impressions. This year, the digital channels TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Ivoox have also been added, and the ‘Saraqusta Podcast’ has been launched with three episodes about the festival hosted by the team from the podcast ‘El sótano de Bruce’.
The Councillor for Culture, Education, and Tourism of the Zaragoza City Council, Sara Fernández, noted that “the City Council is very pleased with the response from the sector and the public. The doubling of vouchers sold and the increase in tickets and space reservations reflects the growing interest, not only in the documentaries and feature films in competition, but also in the rest of the program, such as the Aragonese documentaries and the participation in the new open-air cinema in the Plaza del Pilar.”
SARAQUSTA 2025 AWARD TO NASTASSJA KINSKI
The awards will be presented this afternoon at the closing gala, which is open to the public and will be hosted by Teruel-born actor and presenter Nacho Rubio. It will take place at 7:00 p.m. at the Fundación Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta. In addition to these awards, there is also the Saraqusta Award, which recognizes professional work related to historical audiovisual media. This year, the award went to actors Juanjo Artero and Ana Turpin, who received their awards at the opening ceremony, and to actress Nastassja Kinski, who will receive hers this afternoon at the closing ceremony.
The German actress, who lives in the United States, has worked in Hollywood and brought characters to life in more than 60 films. She will be the first foreign woman to receive the Saraqusta Award, as, to date, the figures from outside our borders honored with this award have been actors Joaquim de Almeida and Fabio Testi.
One of her greatest successes as an actress was Tess, a film set in 19th-century England, which will bring the festival to a close tonight at 9 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema after the closing gala, attended by the actress herself. The film stars the humble Durbeyfield family, who discover that they are actually descended from the illustrious d’Urberville clan. The young Durbeyfield daughter, Tess, played by Kinski, is sent to the nearby d’Urberville mansion to reconnect with her wealthy relatives. Her performance won her the Golden Globe for Best New Actress and a César Award nomination for Best Actress from the French Film Academy.
Kinski has worked with renowned producers such as Francis Ford Coppola and in films that are cinema classics such as Paris, Texas (Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival). In terms of historical audiovisual works, her roles in Spring Symphony, a biographical drama about composer Robert Schumann and his wife, pianist Clara Wieck, and Revolution, about the colonists’ rebellion against England that sparked the War of Independence, in which she shared the screen with Al Pacino, are particularly noteworthy.
Also noteworthy is her participation in films such as The Claim, about the California Gold Rush in 1867, and An American Rhapsody, which tells the story of a Hungarian couple who escape from their country’s communist regime to the United States in 1950. In it, Kinski shared the screen with actors such as Scarlett Johansson and Tony Goldwyn.
Guests will begin arriving on the red carpet at 6:00 p.m. There will be a press conference before the gala. The Minister of Culture, Education, and Tourism of the City of Zaragoza, Sara Fernández; the director of the festival, José Ángel Delgado; Nastassja Kinski; and other representatives from the world of cinema and entertainment, such as Enrique del Pozo, Ruth Gabriel, Antonio Saura, Alba Gallego, Usha Jadhav, Gabriel Montesi, Ginevra Nervi, Maite Uzal, Rafa Maza, and Luis Cebrián are expected to attend.
Saraqusta Film Festival is co-organized by the Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan, with the support of the Ibercaja Foundation as its main partner, the Government of Aragon as its institutional partner, and Ibercaja, Carné Joven de Aragón, Aragón Alimentos, and Arafilmfest as collaborators.