TIFF People’s Choice Winner
This year’s Toronto International Film Festival has some pretty stiff competition with the first runner-up spot going to Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, featuring Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone fighting to get his iconic screenplay made. Coming in as the second runner-up was Siân Heder’s Being Heumann. But the top prize would go to La Bola Negra, a striking Spanish-language historical drama directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. The powerful ensemble film explores what it means to live openly and authentically across different eras. Centered on “three existences” bound together by universal themes of sexuality, desire, pain, and inheritance, the picture clearly resonated deeply with festival crowds.
La Bola Negra
Netflix has just unveiled the emotional trailer for La Bola Negra. The new film stars Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Julio Torres, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close.
The logline reads, “A bold tapestry spanning nearly a century of Spanish history, La Bola Negra tells the story of three generations of men whose lives are intimately connected through desire, pain, and love in this celebrated film from Cannes-winning directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi.”
Directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi also produce the film. The screenplay was penned by Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo and Alberto Conejero. La Bola Negra comes from production companies Movistar Plus and Suma Content Films in coproduction with El Deseo and Le Pacte.
What did we think?
Our Chris Bumbray got to attend a screening at TIFF on an IMAX screen and he raved about the film with a 8/10 rating and his review says, “As usual for a movie that weaves together three (initially) separate stories, at times La bola negra is a touch unwieldy. It took me most of the running time to finally begin to appreciate the modern-day section, which struck me as flat, at least compared to the incredible sequences set in 1937, as Sebastián and Rafael strike up a tentative friendship, even if both know that the former will inevitably be ordered to kill the latter.
The production design and score are incredible, with Calvo and Ambrossi shooting on 35mm film, while the projected version simulates a vintage film print, complete with grain and cigarette burns, as well as rounded edges like you’d see in a pre-1949 theatrical projection (although they use a more cinematic 1.66:1 aspect ratio rather than the de rigueur 1.33:1 favoured by many indies). It’s a sprawling epic, with the brutality of the Spanish Civil War emphasized, as countrymen are forced to wage war against one another while the Fascists gain a foothold during Franco’s dictatorship.”
He also says, “Hopefully Netflix gives La bola negra a theatrical component, as this is clearly not a movie meant for streaming, with it conceived as a theatrical epic. It’s big, muscular filmmaking on a grand scale, and a film everyone reading this will likely hear a ton about as the year goes on.”
Netflix does list the movie as being released in theaters on October 16, but the streamer also specifically announces that La Bola Negra opens theatrically October 16 in LA (AMC Century City, AMC Burbank) and NY (Angelika Film Center, The Paris Theater). Tickets are on-sale NOW.
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed