The jury of the authentic phase of the final movie competition in San Sebastián awarded its major prize, the Golden Shell, to Los Domingos, by means of Alaud Ruiz de Azu. The director and screenwriter commented, after additionally receiving the Feroz Zinemaldia Award – given by means of the AICE (Affiliation of Cinematographers of Spain) – for the contest, that she used to be “very giddy that the proposal would not be understood” as a result of it’s one thing dangerous. However it used to be understood. She completed her purpose: now not handiest to be preferred, but additionally to be mentioned.
Sundais tells the tale of Ainara, a 17-year-old lady who has to come to a decision about her long term. His circle of relatives asks him what occupation he’ll select. However the information that her actual fear is being a nun in a convent surprises them, and it reasons a circle of relatives disaster.
It’s smartly won by means of individuals who take other perspectives on existence, on this case believers and non-believers. And it did not simply occur with Los Domingos. The filmography of Alaud Ruiz de Azu confirms this. His debut characteristic, Cinco Lobitos (which received 3 Goia Awards) used to be challenged and liked, and final yr the Querer sequence additionally triumphed on the tv awards and with audiences. Their tales appear to achieve everybody, irrespective of their ideological positions.
A special means
The luck lies in the way in which Ruiz de Azua makes motion pictures, within the topics he chooses and above all in the way in which he treats them, the way. The Basque director chooses on a regular basis problems that, because of their complexity, open up more than one views, whether or not they’re the shadows and lighting of a brand new mom, the misunderstandings {that a} sufferer of gender violence receives from her circle of relatives, or the other necessary positions of other people when confronted with a youngster who desires to be a nun.
On this case, possibility some other step. Sunday is in reality a phenomenal specimen within the cinematographic landscape. And it is not that there are not any motion pictures on non secular subject matters in present Spanish cinema, there are. However what’s bizarre is the seriousness, austerity and delicacy of the means of the director who has no religion.
Ruiz de Azua, in an interview right through the 2025 San Sebastian Movie Pageant, instructed me that:
“It’s a story I heard when I was young, a girl who had a religious vocation. It caught my attention a lot. I was curious, fascinated. It was something very foreign to me. After the filming of the film ‘Cinco Lobitos’, I saw that I could tell it from the perspective of the family. And there I found the more complex question: how does that not make her position a family? An orphan? Here?”
Actress Blanca Soroa with director Alaud Ruiz de Azu at the set of Los Domingos. BTEAM Photos
It isn’t as regards to discovering the proper key, the proper theme, but additionally in regards to the means. Ruiz de Azua is attracted to starting up ingenious processes to discover eventualities that pose dilemmas which might be tough to unravel, to look what he unearths. And he does it with nice recognize. Apply, analysis, ask, measure. She is meticulous and conscious of small main points:
“When I go into unknown universes, I try to be very rigorous and very analytical … almost like an anthropologist; I like that perspective. And then I work with the sensations and the imagination that it generates in me. But yes, rigor seems important to me. In the love of detail, in the meticulousness … you say a lot about us.”
On this manner, he manages to turn the complexity of conceivable perspectives with out falling into Manichaeism. Other attitudes are captured in Los Domingos relating to non secular vocation: Ainara’s angle of religion contrasts with the absence of religion of her liked aunt Maita. The general public can determine with one or the opposite with out feeling bullied or ridiculed.
“What drew me to cinema from a young age was trying to understand other people. That was a mechanism that was activated in me.”
The significance of on a regular basis existence
Ruiz de Azua is a large fan of the Jap movie director Yasujiro Ozu, from whom he attracts and identifies together with his austere and refined glance:
“I try to make the everyday transcend in some way (…). I guess for me it comes from the cinema that I’ve always loved, from Ozu, films that are called transcendent, not so much in a religious sense, but because, as they enter the everyday, they elevate it to a place a little deeper. And that interests me; but it can seem to me that I’m interested in it, but it can seem to me that it’s very difficult to evoke. very good; combine elements and build it all at once.”
Like Ozu, his fetish theme is circle of relatives. And catches each day; relating to his newest movie: rituals, Sunday foods, attending the conservatory choir or the nuns’ conferences to wish a number of occasions an afternoon. It does so via sober character-centered plotting that performs with narrative parallels and a humorousness and irony. The appearance between the characters and the conversations they have got assist to revel in emotions that give the viewer one thing to take into consideration.
Photograph on Sundays and considered one of their circle of relatives foods. BTEAM Photos
Ruiz de Azua seeks intensity and thriller via tune as smartly. The men concentrate to the songs of Keved and Bizarap, but if they dance within the disco, in an extradiegetic manner, the target market hears handiest sacred tune. Particularly related is the music “Into my arms”, by means of Nick Cave, which explores the intersection of religion, love and human vulnerability, carried out by means of the varsity choir. Ainara sings it once in a while, on my own.
In brief, Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s cinema breathes transcendence via on a regular basis existence. And, as a result of she is so respectful and open about what she proposes, she “doesn’t show her personal vision. She refrains from a conventional interpretation of reality,” as critic and filmmaker Paul Schroeder would say.
That is the name of the game to connecting with the viewer. Their tales stay within the creativeness and are contemplated internally; however they’re additionally mentioned, they talk about what’s necessary with out inflicting a battle. That is what he is as much as.
