They Acclaim Film about Cuban Dancer at San Sebastián Festival

September 25, 2018

The recent feature film by Spanish director Iciar Bollaín, inspired by the life of Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta, is receiving praise from specialists today following its premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

Yuli is the name of the film in which Acosta narrates and dances, in first and painful person, his own life, reports journalist Luis Martínez in the pages of the newspaper El Mundo, for whom the work has something of a mirror and to which the artist leans in order to tell his story.

The film competes for the Golden Shell and its first presentation received in the specialized press the qualifications of 'luminous', 'moving' and 'dazzling'.

Journalist Carlos Pumares, from the newspaper La Razón, assures that, from what has been seen so far at the Festival, Bollaín's film is 'the best, without a doubt'.

In his view, the director intersperses Acosta's childhood and stardom, moving forward and backward in the story with great simplicity.

According to critic Carlos Loureda, from the magazine Fotogramas, Yuli contains the necessary ingredients to succeed at the box office: the social side of Paul Laverty's writing, a mix of emotion and some laughter, dance numbers inserted in the narration and a continuous back and forth between past and present.

Laverty, a regular screenwriter for Ken Loach, drew from the artist's autobiographical book, No Way Home, although the film was made without the pretension of being classified as a biopic.

Also, Loureda praises the work of photographer Alex Catalán for differentiating settings based on particular and contrasting atmospheres.

The sublime photographer gives each space a distinct personality. Cuba turns out to be luminous, attractive, welcoming and maternal. Europe is cold, sepulchral, toward blue or gray tones, almost on the edge of claustrophobia, he commented.

For its part, the Diario de Sevilla published a review by Magdalena Tsanis, for whom the choreography by María Rovira serves as a link between past and present and translate into movement and emotion the most dramatic episodes of Acosta's life, scenes in which—in her view—Bollaín reaches high aesthetic levels.

The 66th edition of the San Sebastián festival takes place in that Spanish city until September 29.

The film features an artistic cast headed by Acosta himself, along with Santiago Alfonso, Laura De la Uz, Yerlín Pérez, Kevin Martínez and child actor Edilson Manuel Olbera, among other actors.

The dancer's company, Acosta Danza, also participates in the film with an emotiveness reinforced by a musical composition by Alberto Iglesias.