Goodbye to Maggie Smith!

The British actress Maggie Smith died yesterday at the age of 89. Her career started in the 1950s and played a very wide range of roles but perhaps for the youngest generations her most famous role is that of professor Minerva McGonagall in the eight Harry Potter films or Violet Crawley – the Countess of Grantham – in the Downton Abbey TV series. Maggie Smith, who won two Oscars and countless theatre awards, rarely appeared on television or gave newspaper interviews as she wasn´t interested in the celebrity game but she had been named dame of the British Empire –DBBE – by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990, in recognition of her superb career.

Festivals ….

Once more it´s time for film festivals and I´d like to draw our attention to some European ones: Venice Film Festival and San Sebastian Film Festival. I dare say that this year´s edition – the 81^st edition of the Venice Festival – will be remembered by two facts: the incredibly high number of film stars attending the festival as well as the incredibly long ovations for some of those attendees such Angelina Jolie o Pedro Almodóvar. 

On the one hand, Angeline Jolie went to Venice so as to promote a new biopic about Maria Callas, the famous opera singer who is usually associated with the term “diva”. As Angeline Jolie explained during a press conference in Venice, that term “has often come with a lot of negative connotations” and it is “other people´s perception of a woman that defines too much who she is” and in her view, “Maria was one of the hardest working people who didn´t hurt anybody” so that she now has a new relationship to the term “diva”. A. Jolie explained that she trained for nearly seven months in order to perform opera and just cared about honouring Callas´s legacy and her fans.

On the other hand, Pedro Almodóvar won the Golden Lion for the film The Room Next Door, which received an 18-minute standing ovation at its premiere. At the age of 74, the Spanish director has made his first film in the English language. The film stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore and tackles the themes of euthanasia and climate crisis. In 2019 he received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice festival. This year, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to Sigourney Weaver during the opening night of the festival. According to the festival, the award is “for a star who has built bridges between the most sophisticated art-house cinema and movies that engage with the public in a frank and original way, all the while remaining true to herself.”

     

Now the San Sebastian Film Festival picks up the baton as the opening ceremony of the festival was held yesterday. During that ceremony Javier Bardem was presented with the Donostia lifetime achievement award although the accolade belongs to last year´s edition. The actor didn´t attend the festival last year due to the Hollywood writers and actors strike which was going on at the time. Cate Blanchett and Pedro Almodóvar will also be presented with the same award this year. As the director of the SSIFF – José Luis Rebordinos – announced last week, this year´s edition – the 72^nd edition – will be full of film stars. 

                               

The SSIFF will be showing a wide range of films which will appeal to a very diverse audience. Why not a visit to the city?