The Secret Behind the Youssef Chahine Award for the Spanish Film “SECUNDARIAS” at the 41st Alexandria Mediterranean Film Festival

 

By Tamer Salah El-Din – Egypt

It’s a rare thing to fall in love with a film at first sight — yet that’s exactly what happened to me as I stepped into Hall 7 at the grand San Stefano cinema.

Only the screen lit up the darkness; silence reigned.

The story unfolded in Spanish, with a rapid English subtitle stream that I could barely follow — but who ever said cinema is about dialogue?

For me, cinema is a visual language first and foremost, completed by acting, set design, music, and expressive motion.

On screen, the actresses appeared in black and white, each in her modern-day life.

From the very first scene, the director deftly defined each character with a few quick lines, while the camera revealed their inner worlds — sorrow and hope, duty and love, responsibility and passion for art.

On stage, where the historical story takes place, the set and costume colors seemed chosen by someone who knows their symbolic power well.

Two empty blue squares designed with light — one larger than the other — stood apart, like twins from different eras.

The tableau was completed by historical costumes dominated by royal red, crowned with gold tiaras and bright canary yellow — a feast for the eyes.

Yet most critics and viewers overlooked a third color palette emerging from the inner “plasma” screen within the stage scene — a representation of the film’s “third reality.”

It evoked the faded tones of 1970s cinema, before modern technology reshaped how color, sound, and perception intertwined.

Through color alone, the film transported viewers into three distinct time periods linked by a single human thread — a profoundly feminine one — as it told the story of the “secondary” woman, who in truth has always been indispensable to every age and every society.

The film asks a fundamental question: Who writes history — and whose voice is heard within it?

A Work of Craft, Vision, and Quiet Power:

The Spanish film “Secundarias” (Supporting Actresses) by Arturo Dueñas Herrero is a quiet yet resonant cry — a film that seeks not spectacle but reflection.

It rearranges memory and restores women to their rightful place in the world’s narrative.

A fully independent Spanish production, the film was written, directed, and produced by Dueñas Herrero, a patient craftsman of independent cinema.

He co-wrote the screenplay with his ensemble of actresses — Béatrice Fulconis, Olga Mansilla, Inés Acebes, Marta Ruiz de Viñaspre, and Pino de Pablos — creating a collective work where human experience intertwines with aesthetic inquiry.

Dueñas employed the “camera-on-shoulder” technique, granting the lens the role of a contemplative observer — an eye moving through time to capture the persistent “unchanged” aspects of women’s lives.

Shot in a single session, after months of rehearsal (some even conducted over WhatsApp due to the actresses’ travels abroad), the camera finally rolled — and didn’t stop until the very last scene.

Confession in the Wings:

On the stage of Teatro Calderón in Valladolid, the film’s actresses command the scene with rare authenticity.

Each embodies the memory of a forgotten woman erased from history’s record.

Set partly in 1558, during the reign of Emperor Charles V, the story mirrors the present — where the same actresses prepare for a stage play titled “Letters to the Emperor” (Cartas al Emperador).

We witness women whose lives, both on and off stage, are humble yet burdened, their personal struggles mirrored in their art.

The stage becomes their refuge — a space to “wear” other identities, to express their battles in another language.

Between rehearsal and reality, the boundaries blur — between past and present, between actress and character, between performance and confession.

The film does not merely portray the feminine burden; it summons it from the enduring continuum of time.

When the Actress Vanishes, the King Falters — and the Show Goes On:

The story opens in Monasterio de Yuste, where Emperor Charles V spends his final days, lost in visions and reflections on power and mortality.

In the dressing rooms and backstage corridors, rehearsals merge with memory until the stage itself becomes a mirror of forgotten history.

As the rhythm intensifies, the stage swallows time, and the camera becomes part of the story rather than a witness to it — transforming the screen into a space for collective revelation.

Then comes a twist: one of the backstage assistants — a humble costume hand — astonishes the troupe with her ability to recite every line of the play from memory.

She confides her secret dream of performing on stage.

When the lead actress (who plays the Queen) suddenly falls ill, Olga Mansilla steps into the role — in both fiction and real life.

Meanwhile, the actor portraying the dying King suffers a real heart attack during filming.

Yet the show goes on.

The camera stays rolling as the stage manager orders the theater closed — a haunting gesture that feels like life itself being shut off.

There is no hero left on stage, only the echo of their presence.

As the actresses leave, one forgets her phone, its faint vibration signaling that something — perhaps an untold story — remains unfinished.

From Alexandria to Valladolid: A Cinematic Dialogue Across the Mediterranean:

Interestingly, Valladolid — the Spanish city where the film premiered — translates in Arabic to “Balad al-Waleed” (The City of the Son), a poetic coincidence reminding us how intertwined human histories truly are.

Every royal court breeds intrigue and conflict, every province its zealous rulers and dissenters.

The cycles of power and opposition, ambition and legacy — these are the timeless materials of both history and art.