The fifth edition of the international competition, organized by Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan, will begin on April 25 and end with the awards ceremony on May 2.
At the opening gala, Saraqusta Awards will be presented to actors Juanjo Artero and Ana Turpin for their careers in historical audiovisual productions.
The third Saraqusta Award 2025 will be presented to actress Nastassja Kinski at the closing gala, followed by a screening of her film ‘Tess’. Kinski becomes the first foreign woman to receive this award.
Zaragoza is preparing to become a leading city for historical cinema from this Friday, April 25, until next Friday, May 2, with the celebration of 5th Saraqusta Film Festival, Zaragoza’s international historical cinema competition. As every year, the event, organized by the Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan, features a large selection of audiovisual works divided into different sections, both competitive and “unofficial,” demonstrating that historical audiovisuals have a lot to say. In total, there are 10 works, five documentaries and five feature films, competing for the 2025 Saraqusta Awards.
The Saraqusta “dragons” will award prizes for Best Feature Film, Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, and there will also be a Young Jury Prize. These statuettes will also recognize the careers of three actors in the historical genre: the international Nastassja Kinski, Juanjo Artero, and Ana Turpin. The latter two will collect their awards at the opening gala this Friday, and the German actress will also visit Zaragoza on Friday, May 2, to do the same at the closing gala, where all the 2025 awards will also be presented.
FINAL DETAILS BEFORE THE OPENING
This Friday, April 25, the opening gala will take place at 7:00 p.m. at the Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta Foundation. After the gala, the activity will move to the Cervantes cinema, where the first screening of this fifth edition will take place at 9:00 p.m. It is the documentary out of competition ‘Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre. Descubriendo Pompeya y Herculano’ (Discovering Pompeii and Herculaneum) , produced by the Aragonese production company Crew Films. It is directed by Zaragoza filmmaker Silvia Pradas and aims to give due recognition to one of the fathers of modern archaeology: Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre, an 18th-century military engineer from Zaragoza who made archaeological discoveries such as Pompeii and Herculaneum.
‘TESS’, STARRING NASTASSJA KINSKI, CLOSING FILM
At the end of the 19th century, the humble Durbeyfield family discovers that they are actually descended from the illustrious d’Urberville clan. The young Durbeyfield daughter, Tess, is sent to the nearby d’Urberville mansion to reconnect with her wealthy relatives. This is the plot of ‘Tess’, a film starring actress Nastassja Kinski, winner of the 2025 Saraqusta Award, which will close the 5th edition of Saraqusta Film Festival. The film can be seen on Friday, May 2, at 9:00 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema.
The film, released in 1979, was directed by Roman Polanski and won three Oscars, a BAFTA award, three César awards, and two Golden Globes, among others. Thanks to her performance, Kinski won the Golden Globe for Best New Actress and was nominated for a César award for Best Actress by the French Film Academy.
The German actress, who lives in the United States, will be honored at the fifth edition of Saraqusta Film Festival with the Saraqusta Award in recognition of her film career and her contribution to the historical genre. Kinski will collect her award at the festival’s closing gala on May 2 at 7:00 p.m. at the Fundación Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta, where the awards for the films participating in this edition will also be presented.
Nastassja Kinski will be the first foreign woman to receive the Saraqusta Award. To date, the figures from outside our borders who have been recognized with this award have been actors Joaquim de Almeida and Fabio Testi. One of our goals as a festival is to reward an international professional each year, as we are committed to bringing film professionals from other corners of the globe to Zaragoza,” says José Ángel Delgado, director of Saraqusta Film Festival.
CAESARAUGUSTA THEATER MUSEUM, MORNING VENUE
During the festival, the Caesaraugusta Theater Museum will be the morning venue. From Sunday, April 27, to Thursday, May 1, the teams from the different productions will parade through the museum to present their work at a press conference (at 10:00 a.m.). Afterwards, at 12:00 p.m., there will be screenings of Aragonese documentaries: ‘Los fugaces párpados’ (The Fleeting Eyelids) by Marta Horno; ‘Tamarite Mágicoh’ (Magical Tamarite), directed by Isabel Aparicio; ‘Lux sacra’ (Sacred Light), by Eduardo de la Cruz; ‘Manolo Kabezabolo’, directed by J. Alberto Andrés Lacasta; and ‘Los ojos que vieron’ (The Eyes That Saw), by Erik Salvador. Admission will be free until full capacity is reached.
At 12:30 p.m., there will be a space for round tables open to the public. This year, in order of appearance, they will be as follows: “Wikipedia, cinema, and history,” on this tool as a source of documentation for film events and audiovisual works; “Discovering Pompeii and Herculaneum,” to reveal the ins and outs of the festival’s opening documentary; ‘The VFX of ‘Sin límites’’, the Magallanes series, by the Aragonese studio XReality; ‘Rock stars and classics’, on how the audiovisual medium has portrayed the gods of music; and ‘The historical cinema of Ridley Scott’, analyzed by the members of the podcast El Sótano de Bruce.
ACTIVITIES IN THE PATIO DE LA INFANTA AND THE CERVANTES CINEMA
In the afternoons, the festival’s activities will move to the Fundación Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta. In addition to the opening and closing galas, at 5:00 p.m. you can enjoy the audiovisuals of the non-competitive Panorama Saraqusta exhibition. In order of screening, from April 27 to May 1, they are: the film ‘El gigante de Es Vedrá y otras leyendas’ (The Giant of Es Vedrá and Other Legends); the tv-serial ‘Valle salvaje’ (Wild Valley); the documentary ‘Los primeros 100 años’ (The First 100 Years); the series ‘Sin límites’ (Without Limits) and an episode of the documentary series ‘Arqueomanía’ (Archeomania): ‘Los elegidos de Atón’ (The Chosen Ones of Aten).
At 7:00 p.m., it will be time for the documentaries in competition: Mil leyendas, un grial (A Thousand Legends, One Grail) by Manuel Cabo Sánchez; El recuerdo (The Memory) directed by Cristóbal Vargas and Antonia González; Antonio, el bailarín de España (Antonio, the Dancer of Spain) by Paco Ortiz; Portugal ’74, a documentary by directors Paul Le Grouyer and Bruno Lorvão; and Kut Al Amara, by Koray Demir.
The screenings scheduled for Monday, April 28, at the Patio de la Infanta (‘Valle salvaje’ and ‘El recuerdo’) will change location. Once the new location has been determined, it will be published on the festival website, in the ‘Programming’ section.
This year, screenings will return to movie theaters, and the feature films in competition will be shown in the evenings at the Cervantes cinema (at 9:00 p.m.). The screening order is as follows: ‘Solos en la noche’ (Alone in the Night) by Guillermo Rojas; ‘Vari’ by director Jaak Kilmi; ‘Obraz’ by Nikolas Vukcevic; ‘Primavera de Seúl’ (Seoul Spring) directed by Kim Sung-su; and ‘Campo de batalla’ (Battlefield) by Gianni Amelio.
This year, the jury responsible for determining the winners in the different categories of the festival is composed of: Usha Jadiv, actress and producer; 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.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
The Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta Foundation and the Cervantes cinema will also host a day of special screenings on Saturday 26. In the morning, two films by Ana Turpin and Juanjo Artero will be screened at the Patio de la Infanta: at 9:30 a.m., El florido pensil, starring Turpin, and at 11:30 a.m., El río que nos lleva, starring Artero. In the afternoon, at 5:00 p.m., the documentary series ‘Ataúdes blancos’ (White Coffins) will be shown there. The last screening of the day will be at 9:00 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema: the film ‘Bartolomé Bermejo. El despertar de un genio’ (Bartolomé Bermejo: The Awakening of a Genius).
This year, as a new feature, there will be a new screening space open to the public. On Wednesday, April 30, at 6:00 p.m., Plaza del Pilar will be the venue for ‘Gladiator’, one of the most renowned historical films. Admission to see Ridley Scott’s film on the big screen will be free until full capacity is reached.
Tickets to attend the opening and closing galas and screenings are available on the festival website (saraqustafilmfestival.com). Aragonese documentaries, Panorama Saraqusta audiovisuals, special screenings on Saturday, April 26, and Gladiator are free with online reservations through the website. Access to view the documentaries and feature films in competition costs €4, and the opening and closing ceremonies cost €5. A €15 pass is also available, which grants access to all the screenings in competition and the ceremonies. It can be purchased in the same way as tickets through the official website of Saraqusta Film Festival.
The festival, co-organized by the Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan, has the support of the Government of Aragon as an institutional partner, the Ibercaja Foundation as the main partner, and Ibercaja, Carné Joven de Aragón, Aragón Alimentos, and Arafilmfest as collaborators.