Pikachu es un pokemon de tipo eléctrico al que no le gusta ir en su pokeball. Prefiere la libertad, no estar encerrado en esa bola. Va con Ash, su entrenador. ¿Quién es Pikachu?, ¿cómo es?, ¿evoluciona? Yo sé poco o nada del universo Pokémon, pero que evolucionan sí lo sé. Y, de repente, me vi en un diálogo en el que se hablaba de bolas, de constreñir la libertad, de transformación, de ser uno y luchar para convertirse en otro, y pensé que todo cuadraba, que todo está relacionado. Que si cinco minutos antes me dicen que los pokémones y La bola negra tienen tanta relación y que Pikachu y Edmond de Bries tienen cosas en común, ni lo contemplo, pero, de repente, mis neuronas hicieron solas la conexión y tiene lógica.
Oozing panache and bagging awards already, La Bola Negra is an eye-popping war and prejudice epic starring Penélope Cruz in a blond wig and Glenn Close speaking Spanish. We meet the ex-lovers who dreamed it up
When Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – the directing duo known in their native Spain as “Los Javis” – began writing their queer epic La Bola Negra, they weren’t thinking about whether it would be stylish (which it is) or win numerous awards (which it has) or capture what they refer to as “the anti-fascist zeitgeist” (which it does). Instead, they thought only of scale. “I’m done with LGBTQ+ movies being niche,” says Ambrossi. “I was like, ‘Let’s make the biggest, gayest war movie ever.’” Job done.
At Cannes this year, the best director prize was awarded jointly to them and to Paweł Pawlikowski, who made the Thomas Mann road trip film Fatherland. La Bola Negra is now an Oscars frontrunner, with best picture and best director nominations all but guaranteed. Brimming with panache, the movie darts back and forth between three stories set in Spain: in 1932, a young man applying for membership of an exclusive casino is rejected on the grounds of his suspected homosexuality; in 1937, a callow nationalist soldier develops tender feelings for the injured republican prisoner under his watch; and in 2017, a queer historian inherits an unfinished story by Federico García Lorca. That story lends the movie its title and provides the thread that sews its strands together.
The eighth edition of the New York City International Book Fair (FILNYC) arrives in Manhattan stronger and more ambitious than ever. This year’s edition has double the number of activities, offering 160 events over five days, including panel discussions, workshops, professional sessions for the publishing industry, book clubs and, for the first time, programming for children and young adults, with dedicated spaces providing resources for teachers who want to promote reading in Spanish.
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