Foals of Pedro Almodóvar, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi sign one of the most daring works of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival with their film The Black Balla fresco on homosexuality that is so beautiful as to cry.
Twenty minutes of standing ovation! During its screening this Thursday, May 21 as part of the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, The Black Ball aroused the support of a public moved to tears. Authors of the series The Poison et La MesÃasthe Spaniards Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, protégés of the great Pedro Almodóvar, sign here a grandiose and galvanizing fresco on the homosexual condition. Our Palm of the Heart.
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Partly fueled by an unfinished novel by the poet and playwright Federico GarcÃa Lorca, found after his death, the film first follows a young man whose entry into a place reserved for the elite is refused because of his presumed sexual orientation. The Black Ball is also inspired by the play The dark stoneby the playwright and screenwriter of the film Alberto Conejero, which deals with the loves of Lorca and the football player Rafael RodrÃguez Rapún, victim like the writer of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Mixing the motifs of these works, the film interweaves three eras and three stories of gay men, illustrating the need for historical memory within the LGBT community.
Chef-romantic work
“The heart of a faggot is like an ocean of secrets…poetizes one of the characters. Without pretension to edification, The Black Ball functions as a call to break the taboos around homosexuality, emphasizing the importance in this aim of recounting our experiences, our suffering as well as our (re)joyances, and of transmitting them to following generations. An eye in the rearview mirror to realize the importance of the path traveled, the film nourishes the hope of continuing to build community in the face of the adversity that remains before us.
Served by a dense and impeccably crafted script, the cast brings together for our greatest joy Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, as well as the young musician Guitarricadelafuente. From its explosive prologue to its soundtrack, The Black Ball has everything of a romantic masterpiece, punctuated in particular by a galvanizing dance scene filmed in sequence, and magnificent shots with Christ-like symbolism. A memorable epic, our heart of the ocean this year on the Croisette.
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Photo credit: Le Pacte
