Jaime Rosales returns to the Golden Shell stage with a fresh pairing of titles, first with Headshot from 2008 and now with Wild Sunflowers, the distance between the two works spanning more than a decade and a half. They are, indeed, two fictions deeply rooted in their era, yet they approach that era from strikingly different angles. One is an unapologetically abrasive artistic meditation on terrorism, marked by austere formal choices and a willingness to provoke fear and debate. It stands among the Barcelona artist’s most provocative achievements in terms of risk and rhetoric. The other, unveiled this Saturday in San Sebastian, takes a more restrained path. It treats its subject—the work object itself—with a disciplined, almost minimalist clarity that makes its controversial core feel precise and deliberate rather than sensational. The contrast between the two films underscores Rosales’s ongoing interest in how form and idea meet in contemporary society.
At the center of the new work is a commanding performance by Anna Castillo, who embodies a mother of two navigating a tangle of difficult relationships. The film sketches a three-step portrait: first, a cohabitation with an unemployed man whose tattoos and debts signal volatility from the outset; second, a soldier stationed in Melilla who is the biological father of the children yet refuses responsibility beyond remittances; and third, a more educated, financially secure partner who longs to start a family but balks at the sacrifices involved. The film uses these strands to map a landscape of emotional risk and social pressure that forms the spine of the narrative.
Sabina opens on the canal
In essence, Wild Sunflowers offers a concise catalog of toxic masculinity in its many guises. The core tension lies in how the male characters are presented less as fully realized individuals than as representations within a broader catalog—a risk that Rosales occasionally pushes toward the caricature end of the spectrum. Yet the film questions whether it can hold a decisive point of view when its own depiction of men seems to shimmer with ambiguity. Some viewers may sense a subtext: a suggestion that certain women gravitate toward the wrong partnerships, others that a universal claim—perhaps all men hold some poison—appears, in places, to be too sweeping. The result is a work that provokes discussion about intent and effect while inviting multiple readings.
dangerous classes
Also featured in the competition today is El suplente, a film that turns its attention to the social frictions experienced by students and teachers in conflict zones. It follows an Argentine middle-class intellectual who finds his life altered when he takes a substitute teaching post in a drug-ridden urban school and must confront the uphill task of guiding his students. The director, Diego Lerman, does not rush to moralize or oversimplify the ethical tensions suggested by Rosales’s previous film. The suspense is introduced with restraint, and the result feels more grounded and believable than the familiar classroom dramas that promise dramatic turns without fully earning them. While some might compare this picture to a stylized, idealized portrayal of a transformative teacher, El suplente remains more modest and rigorous in its approach, leaning toward realism rather than sensationalism. It evokes memories of The Class (2008) and stands apart from more sensational entries like Dangerous Minds (1995) through a tempered sensibility about classroom dynamics.
The final feature in today’s slate, Runner, derives its dramatic force from spare, unglamorous storytelling. Set in a late-uncertain period in the American landscape, Marian Mathias’s debut follows a young woman who travels long distances to lay to rest her father, whose death exposes a lost generation. The film builds its power on the mood of wind, rain, and mud, pairing a sequence of seemingly minor events and conversations to reveal a broader emotional arc. Clocking in at 76 minutes, the movie proves unusually potent in its lean architecture, turning minimalism into a strength rather than a limitation. It demonstrates how careful composition and deliberate tempo can sustain resonance across a compact runtime, leaving a lasting impression on audiences and critics alike.