Estibaliz Urresola’s debut feature, ‘20,000 species of bees’, co-produced by Catalan Films, has won the Biznaga de Oro for the best Spanish film at the Malaga Festival, while the co-production of Panama and Chile ‘Las hijas’, by Kattia G. Zúñiga, has been the best Ibero-American feature film.

Urresola’s film has also risen to the list of winners announced this Saturday with the award for best supporting female performance, for Patricia López Arnaizwhich is added to the Feroz Puerta Oscura Award, which is granted by journalists who are members of the Association of Film Informants (AICE).

Besides, the Silver Barrel the best director has been for the Chilean Matías Bize for the co-production of Chile and Argentina ‘The penalty’, and the special jury prize, for the film ‘Bajo terapia’, by Gerardo Herrero, for all its actors and actresses.

Regarding the best female performancethe actress from Vigo has been awarded María Vázquez, for her work on ‘Matria’by Álvaro Gago, and for the best male performance, the Argentine actor Alberto Ammann for ‘Upon entry’ (‘The arrival’), by the Venezuelans Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastián Vásquez.

Likewise, the jury has recognized as best supporting actor to Argentine Jorge Marrale for her role in the Spanish-Argentine co-production ‘Empieza el baile’, directed by Marina Seresesky, who also won the audience award with the viewers’ votes.

The film ‘Els encantats’ (‘Freeze tag’), by Elena Trapé, has achieved the best script awardwritten by Miguel Ibáñez and Trapé herself, and the co-production of Colombia, Argentina and the US ‘Rebelión’, directed by José Luis Rugeles, has received the award for best music, for Pablo Mondragón.

The list of winners is completed with the Biznagas de Plata for the best photography, for Serguei Saldivar Tanaka for the mexican movie ‘Red shoes’, by Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser, and for Best Editing, for Haroldo Borges and Juliano Castro for the Brazilian feature film ‘Saudade fez morada aqui dentro’, directed by Borges. And the critics’ prize in the official section of this Malaga Festival has gone to the co-production of Argentina and Uruguay “Desperté con un sueño”, by Pablo Solarz.

The director of the contest, Juan Antonio Vigar, has highlighted in the act of reading the prize list that, “overcome the health problems experienced in previous editions”, this year has been enjoyed “as a celebration of social life and of the Festival itself, which has recovered its hallmarks“.

According to Vigar, they have noticed “a unanimous industry support and high public attendance at the theaters”, in addition to “the enormous strength and dimension of the Festival’s industry area, which has consolidated its exponential growth last year”. In this sense, he highlighted that the official Spanish film market has had 1,700 guests from 61 countries, “figures that speak of how the industrial muscle has been essential at the Malaga Festival”.

Thus, he has opted for “creating together the ‘talentria’, the union between talent and industry”, and has insisted that in this festival “its singularity is its generality, to be useful to the sector and show the best that is done”. The one in Málaga is “an auteur film festival even without being completely, comedy but not only, investigation but without being completely, new directors but not only that, and established directors but not completely”, has Added Vigar.