SOUTHERN BRIDES
(LAS NOVIAS DEL SUR)
a medium-lenght documentary by Elena López Riera, 40', DCP, 2024, color
Women of a certain age talk about their marriage, their first time, their intimate relationship with sexuality. In the repetition of these ancestral rituals, the director questions her own lack of marriage, of children, and with it, a chain of mother-daughter relationships that is dying out.
FESTIVALS
World Première at Semaine de la Critique, Cannes - Séance spéciale / QUEER PALM for short films
Semaine de la Critique on tour: Cinémathèque Corse, Cinémathèque Française,
Festival du Film de Fesses, Paris
International Film Festival - Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal
Elena López Riera was born in Orihuela (Spain) in 1982. After completing her doctoral thesis on contemporary Argentinean cinema, she teaches comparative literature at the University of Geneva, Carlos III University in Madrid and Valencia.
She has been a member of the selection committee of the Festival international de Belfort Entrevue since 2016, collaborator and consultant at the Seville European Film Festival and member of the selection committee of the Festival Visions du réel, Nyon.
She directed the short films Pueblo (presented at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs of Cannes Film Festival 2015, and Las vísceras (presented at the Locarno Festival, international competition Pardi di domani, distinguished by the Mikeldi Silver Award at the Zinebi International Festival).
Her short film Los que desean was nominated for the European Film Awards and won the Pardino d'Oro at the Locarno Festival in 2018.
She participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus of the 2017 Berlin International Festival.
El agua, her first feature film, made its world premiere at the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival 2022. It was subsequently selected to Toronto and San Sebastián, and was nominated for the Goya Awards for Best First Film and Best Lead Actress, as well as the Quartz-Prix du Cinéma Suisse for Best Film and Best Editing.
With the support of l'Institut Valencià de Cultura, A punt Media.
With the support of Office Fédéral de la Culture, Succès Passage Antenne, Cinéforom, Loterie Romande and France Télévision.
Production: SUICAFilms (Espagne) / Alina film (Suisse)
Les film du Worso (France)
Script and direction: Elena López Riera
Producers: Rafa Molés, Pepe Andreu, Eugenia Mumenthaler, David Epiney
Executive production: Natalia Maestro
Editing: Ariadna Ribas, Ana Pfaff
Image: Elena López Riera, Alba Cros, Agnès Piqué
Casting: Cristina Pérez
Sound Postproduction: Alejandro Castillo
Colorgrading: Rodney Musso
Finishing: Jean-Baptiste Perrin
