Spain’s San Sebastián Competition, the largest movie occasion within the Spanish-speaking world, has added a fourth Spanish title to its predominant competitors: Movistar Plus+ unique “Sundays” (“Los domingos”), the most recent movie from Alauda Ruiz de Azuá.

Ruiz de Azúa turned heads together with her first function, Berlin Panorama participant “Lullaby” (“Cinco Lobitos”), an eminently grounded mother-daughter maternity drama which was endorsed by Pedro Almodóvar as “undoubtedly the very best debut in Spanish cinema for years.”

Ruiz de Azúa’s first TV sequence, the household drama/courtroom thriller “Querer,” world premiered to acclaim at San Sebastián final 12 months and went on to take finest sequence in predominant competitors at Lille’s Collection Mania, Europe’s premier TV pageant. 

Co-produced and offered internationally by France’s Le Pacte, “Sundays” presents a household quandary: Ainara, 17, good, and an idealist, simply has to decide on what she research at college earlier than happening, foreseeably, to an illustrious profession, her household hopes. 

Ainara, nonetheless,  declares that she feels ever nearer to God, and is considering becoming a member of an enclosed non secular order.

“Sundays” is about and shot in Ruíz de Azúa’s native Basque Nation. Debutant Blanca Soroa performs Ainara. “Sundays” additionally stars Patricia López Arnaiz, a 2024 San Sebastián appearing winner for “Glimmers,” Miguel Garcés (“Querer,” “20,000 Species of Bees,” “Maixabel”), Argentina’s multi-prized Juan Minujín (“The Two Popes,” “El Marginal,” “Zama”), Mabel Rivera, winner of a supporting actress Spanish Academy Goya for “The Sea Inside,” and Nagore Aranburu, star of “Querer.”

When “Sundays” went into manufacturing, Movistar Plus+ confirmed that it might be advised from two factors of view: that of Ainara, who needs to flee the world, and that of Maite, who hopes to persuade her niece that the world remains to be price dwelling in.  

“Movistar Plus+ needs to guess on auteurs with a key imaginative and prescient but in addition the potential to succeed in a broad public, and ‘Sundays’ is a living proof,” Guillermo Farré, Movistar Plus+ head of unique movies & Spanish cinema, mentioned when Selection introduced “Sundays.” 

“Sundays” is produced by Movistar Plus+, the largest Spanish pay TV/SVOD operator, in addition to Nahikari Ipiña at Sayaka Producciones, Marisa Fernández Armenteros’ Buenapinta Media (“The Mole Agent”), Sandra Hermida at Assume Studio and Colosé Producciones (“Society of the Snow”) and Manu Calvo (“Wounded”). BTeam Footage will distribute in Spain. 

Launching a slate of occasion auteur theatrical options in January 2024, the Movistar Plus+ co-produced “Sirât” directed by Oliver Laxe, which received Cannes Jury Prize in Might. “Sundays” joins one other Movistar Plus+ Unique in San Sebastian’s predominant competitors, Alberto Rodríguez’s “Los Tigres,” an underwater thriller. 

Ipiña, Fernández Armenteros, Hermida and Calvo produced “Lullaby.” “Our guess on Alauda’s debut function allowed us to accompany her on an unforgettable journey, not solely when it comes to the movie’s prizes, evaluations and field workplace but in addition the bonds of belief and complicity it established,” they mentioned when “Sundays” went into manufacturing. 

“Now we’ve the nice luck to accompany Alauda together with her new movie, a narrative which gripped us when she offered it to us as an thought. We’re very comfortable to accompany her as soon as extra within the new journey,” they added.