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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Set against the electrifying and boisterous backdrop of Macau, Ballad of a Small Player / Maldita suerte, by Edward Berger, competing in the Official Selection, follows the story of Lord Doyle in the chaotic world of high-stakes gambling.
At the press conference, Berger said that Macau is key to the film. To Chen, “it felt like a huge operatic stage”. Farrell likened his character to “a lost soul… on the precipice just before falling into the vacuum of his own insignificance. He doesn’t believe in his own worth.” Berger added that Doyle was originally written as English, but casting Farrell brought “the ultimate irony — an Irishman playing an English lord.”
Drawing on Asian cinema and scored by Volker Bertelmann, Berger called the film “an opera” blending spectacle and fragility, using a game of metaphorical and literal mirrors and reflections to explore spirituality through Doyle’s redemption and connection with baraka, a concept of spiritual blessing or divine grace. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you shouldn’t be afraid of ghosts”, Fala said. Its final dance scene, Berger explained, was meant as “an explosion of joy… the beginning of a new life. This film is about spiritual awakening.”
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