MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE (Eleanor Coppola) — World Premiere

Eleanor Coppola is the fly on the walls of Versailles observing the nuanced details of the family affair of her daughter Sofia mounting a major film production. With unprecedented access to the palace, the production also featured lavishly intricate costumes and a grueling shooting schedule. Over 80 hours, she captured it all, including candid asides from in-every-scene Kirsten Dunst and witty banter from the host of actors and musicians making memorable cameos. Assembled during lockdown together and completed after her death, the project takes on reflective air of nostalgia.

LA BOLA NEGRA (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi) — North American Premiere

Flamboyant acts of imagination interlink a 2017 academic and a reluctant soldier at war with his emerging identity in 1939. Carlos González grounds the near-present action with mother-son bickering and an unexpected inheritance, indie musician Guitarricadelafuente anchors the boisterous homoerotic confusion amid the fascist army that he finds himself serving alongside after death rained from above on his village. Penelope Cruz makes a memorable glittery appearance in the past and Glenn Close waltzes into present day to provide an academic spin on the material. Other elements swing fantastical as the two stories entwine across the ages. The swings of the directors self-described “gay magic” are huge, and even as they stretch toward coherence remain highly emotionally effective.
Inspired by an unfinished work by Federico García Lorca, “The Javis’s” maximalist conception is both a thrilling excavation of bloody Spanish history and a wondrously hopeful gesture at the possibility of mending wounds.