Unicaja Banco collaborates with Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival (FICX), which reaches its 61st editiona and will take place from 17 to 25 November, under the slogan ‘Déjate deslumbrar por el mejor cine de autor’ (‘Let yourself be dazzled by the best auteur cinema’).
This festival has become a meeting point for authentically independent cinema and maintains its commitment to films that offer a personal and genuine look.
This support from Unicaja Banco is part of its interest in promoting culture in general and the seventh art in particular in the areas where it operates, especially in Gijón.
As for this year’s FICX program, it includes nearly 200 films, which will be complemented, among multiple activities, with meetings between spectators and filmmakers.
This event is an invitation to the public to enjoy cinema in community and in theaters and have the opportunity to chat with more than 200 directors, actors and industry professionals who will visit the Asturian city on the occasion of this appointment with the international independent cinema.
Opening gala by Santiago Segura
Santiago Segura will host the opening gala of FICX, which will take place on 17 November at the Teatro Jovellanos. During the opening ceremony, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes will receive one of the Honorary Awards, and Asturian actress and cuplé diva Lilián de Celis will be honored with the 4th Isaac del Rivero Award, in recognition of her career.
The ceremony will be crowned by the world premiere of ‘Lobo’, a film directed by Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas and co-written and starring Marian Álvarez, who plays a woman who, in the company of her dog, will put some distance between her and her former life. The film also features Nora Navas and other actors such as Toni Acosta, Luis Callejo and Andrés Gertrúdix.
Cinema and culture figures
For nine days, Gijón will be visited by figures from the world of cinema, including the Irish filmmaking couple Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, the Spanish actress and director Elena Martín Gimeno, and the French director of photography Agnès Godard, who will receive an Honorary Award, in collaboration with the French Institute of Spain and the Directorate General for Equality of Women and Men.
The Gijón event will also be attended by filmmakers such as Michael Winterbottom, Catherine Breillat, Lisandro Alonso, Fien Troch, Neus Ballús, Pedro Costa, Stephan Komandarev, Augusto M. Torres, Marie Amachoukeli, Léa Fehner, Samu Fuentes, Andrei Tănase, María Aparicio, Marta Lallana, María Royo and Julia de Castro, Ion de Sosa, Eneko Sagardoy or Celia Viada Caso; performers like Léa Drucker, Ilinca Manolache, Nora Navas or Pascal Cervo; musicians Raül Refree and Eric Jiménez (Los Planetas), or writer Vicente Molina Foix, among other relevant figures of cinema and culture.
For the closing ceremony, the screenwriter Alicia Luna will receive the Comadre de Cine Award, granted in collaboration with the Tertulia Feminista les Comadres, and the actress Núria Prims will receive, on behalf of the director Agustí Villaronga, the Rambal Award that the XEGA association and FICX have granted her posthumously.
The Esbilla Section, made up of almost 40 titles, inaugurates the Premiere category, where the public will be able to enjoy, among others, the Spanish premieres of the latest films by Michael Winterbottom and Aki Kaurismäki.
Tickets and passes
The 10-ticket vouchers and full passes can be purchased both online and in person at the Jovellanos Theater box office and at the reception of the Antigua Escuela de Comercio.
The purchase of single tickets and the exchange of vouchers can be made, in the same way, from Friday 10 November. For the screenings at Ocine Premium Los Fresnos and Cine Yelmo Ocimax, tickets can also be purchased on the same day at their box offices, and for the sessions programmed by the FICX at Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura, at the reception desk. As for the opening and closing tickets, they will go on sale at the Jovellanos Theater box office and online, two days before the event.
