Hunting Day, the new film by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Aguilera (selected in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight with La influencia [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Pedro Aguilera
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intervista: Carlota Pereda
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intervista: Icíar Bollaín
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intervista: Pilar Palomero
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With a screenplay by Lola Mayo (The Dead Man and Being Happy [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Manuel Martín Cuenca
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The heat, unbearable, suffocating, and the conversations about the past become more and more heated until the women are pitted against each other. It is impossible not to remember that almost 60 years ago, another hunting day on this very estate ended in tragedy: in the film The Hunt, by Carlos Saura, starring Ismael Merlo, Alfredo Mayo and Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, which won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1966 Berlin Film Festival.

“The Hunt is within Hunting Day, it is part of the feature film... and therefore the spirit of Saura is also present, as is the spirit of the period when it was made in contrast to our present,” the filmmaker told Cineuropa. “In that sense it is a political film, the context of the time permeates both films, confronts them and makes them complementary, mirrors and akin. A film family... in my version, which is actually a free adaptation of the original script, many things are different and many are very similar; Hunting Day has a different tone of black humour to the previous one. It is funny, irreverent, fresh... there is the spirit of Saura but I would also say that of Berlanga, Buñuel and even Paco Martínez Soria [laughs]... I think that, in part, the key theme of the film is Spain”, he concludes.

Hunting Day has been produced by Jaime Gona for the Spanish company Gonita Filmaccion with Día de caza AIE, with associated production by Stephane Sorlat and Thomas Pibarot for Mondex&cie (France) and executive production by Anna Saura. It includes the participation of RTVE, Movistar Plus+, funding from the ICAA and the Junta de Extremadura plus the support of Media and the Community of Madrid. It has also received a grant from Ibermedia, it took part in the first edition of the Film Academy's Residency programme and participated in Ventana CineMad 2021.