Interval 37. Elena López Riera
Water and Entrails
Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website. A maximum of 2 per person. Doors open 30 minutes before screenings
Intervals is a regular programme which premieres film work that lies beyond the Museo Reina Sofía’s mainstream circuit, showing salient films from the year in progress or the previous one. This fresh edition presents El agua (Water, 2022), a feature film by Elena López Riera (Spain, 1982), accompanied by Las vísceras (Entrails, 2016), a short film on the ritual and attraction of daily rural life. López Riera, with a filmography straddling gruesome realism and magical thinking, has established herself as one of the most original voices in new Spanish cinema.
El agua tells the story of a young teenager — played by Luna Pamies, nominated for the Best New Actress Prize at the 2023 Goya Awards — during a summer spent in a village in south-east Spain, crossed by a river on the verge of flooding. The girl and her mother — played by Bárbara Lennie —fight to survive an old popular belief asserting that some women are predestined to disappear in every new flood because they have “water inside”. This debut feature sheds light on a film-maker with a unique gaze and is profoundly rooted in rural atavism: a film halfway between the verist representation of the working classes in southern Spain, with a focus on women, and the trend towards the mystery and existential tragedy that determine their lives.
Programme
Elena López Riera. Las vísceras
Spain, 2016, colour, original version in Spanish, DA, 16’
Elena López Riera. El agua
SSwitzerland, Spain and France, 2022, colour, original version in Spanish, DA, 105’
— Presentation and conversation with the film-maker Elena López Riera, writer Violeta Gil and actress Nieve de Medina in the first session
Credits
Las vísceras
- Director:
- Elena López Riera
- Production:
- Elena López Riera and Louise Hentgen, with the special collaboration of Garidi Films and Vermut Films
- Script:
- Elena López Riera
- Photography:
- Gabriel Azorín, Marcelo López Riera, Giuseppe Truppi, Philippe Azoury and Elena López Riera
- Sound:
- Mathieu Farnarier
El agua
- Director:
- Elena López Riera
- Producer:
- Pepe Andreu, Alejandro Arenas, David Epiney, Rafael Moles, Eugenia Mumenthaler and Sylvie Pialat
- Script:
- Elena López Riera and Philippe Azoury
- Cast:
- Luna Pamies, Bárbara Lennie, Nieve de Medina and Alberto Olmo
- Photography:
- Giuseppe Truppi
- Editing:
- Raphaël Lefèvre
- Awards:
- 75th Cannes Film Festival, 2022. Directors’ Fortnight Programme
- 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival, 2022. Zabaltegui-Tabakalera Section
- 2023 Goya Awards. Nominated for Best Debut Director (Elena López Riera) and Best New Actress (Luna Pamies)