A formally rigorous documentary about the art and tragedy of the bullfight
Across a sequence of afternoons, the young Peruvian matador Andrés Roca Rey engages in a solitary life-and-death dance with a bull. Delicately clad in the traditional embroidered suit, Rey subdues his opponents through a tightly choreographed yet improvisational performance which lays bare the graphic nature of one of Southern Europe’s most controversial practices.
With calculated precision, Serra has forged an unflinching meditation that cuts through the ornament and ritual of the bullfight to raise questions about the very nature of existence. A ferocious and haunting documentary whose formal rigour both offsets and focuses the challenging nature of its subject matter.
Feroz Zinemaldia Award, San Sebastián International Film Festival, 2024, es
Golden Seashell Award for Best Film,, San Sebastián International Film Festival, 2024, es
Ateneo Guipuzcoano Award for Best Film, San Sebastián International Film Festival, 2030, es
Albert SERRA
Born in 1975, Albert Serra directed his first feature film, Crespià, in 2003. His subsequent films, shot in Catalan or French, were selected at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, he won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Festival for Story of my Death, and in 2022, Pacifiction was nominated 9 times for a César. Afternoons of Solitude is his first documentary.
