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“La Bola Negra,” the Cannes-winning film from Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, will open the New York City LGBTQ+ film festival NewFest38 on Oct. 15.
Calvo and Ambrossi, known together as Los Javis, are set to attend
the screening, as is star Julio Torres.
Set in 1932, 1937 and 2017, “La Bola Negra” spans 85 years of Spanish history. It explores the interconnected lives of three gay men and is inspired by an unfinished fragment by Federico García Lorca.
“Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi have brought us a sweeping epic in ‘La Bola Negra,’ exactly the kind of bold, intergenerational queer storytelling that NewFest exists to champion,” NewFest interim executive director Lesli Klainberg said Wednesday. “Opening our festival with a film of this scale and ambition signals our commitment to showcasing LGBTQ+ narratives that are cinematic, politically resonant and unapologetically visible on the world stage.”
The film not only received a 16-minute standing ovation at its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, but Los Javis also won best director (in a tie with Paweł Pawlikowski for “Fatherland”). “La Bola Negra” most recently had its North America premiere at Telluride.
In addition to Torres, the cast also includes Spanish music sensation Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close and features the original song “La Nieve” co-written and performed by Guitarricadelafuente.
“I needed to make a big movie with gay actors portraying gay characters,” Ambrossi said in an interview with Variety just hours before the film’s Cannes world premiere in May. “We wanted to make the biggest film we could make in Spain and to make it a statement. We deserve to have big movies and LGBT people deserve to be the leads of big movies. When I was a kid, I didn’t have super productions starring gay men. I wanted to give the world this idea of a super production that is auteur-driven but also very queer. We can make big things.”
Netflix will release the film theatrically on Oct. 16, followed by a streaming debut on Dec. 2, marking a record 47-day window for the streamer.
NewFest38 runs Oct. 15-25 in theaters throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Select films will also be available to stream virtually through NewFest’s on-demand platform, Oct. 15-30. The full lineup will be released later this month.
