Argentinian director Maria Aparicio’s drama “Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion” — which mixes personal and political elements — has scored the Venice Days director’s award, the section’s top prize.
“Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion,” which marks Aparicio’s fourth feature, follows a woman named Eva who is passing through Madrid. “She spends her days there alone: she doesn’t know anyone and isn’t particularly interested in getting to know new people,” says the official synopsis. “The city is therefore an unfamiliar place where she wanders aimlessly, her curiosity somewhat dampened. But one afternoon, at the Reina Sofía Museum, a man approaches her. His name is Dante and he is an Argentinian historian researching labor struggles in his country and the career of Juan Bialet Massé” [who was a pioneer of labor law and public health in Argentina].”
Eva Bianco stars as Eva, while Roger Koza plays Dante.
The jury, headed by Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón, said in a statement: “A woman. A man. Encounters and missed encounters. A possible love story. Two great actors. A film that portrays the solitude of the present, holding together an intimate dimension and a political charge, inviting us to think about labor, immigration and privilege through a delicate mise en scène built on small gestures rather than big events.”
