Romance de Valentía

"Bullfighting can indeed be a form of art. Those few seconds of unity between man and animal, that's what it's about," Sonía Herman Dolz says about her dramatized documentary Romance de Valentía - Only the Brave. In her film, Dolz depicts a tradition that is rooted in the Spanish culture - which encounters fierce opposition abroad. The film-maker leaves that controversy for what it is; she does not want to set herself up as an advocate or opponent of bullfights. The main character is the young torero Enrique Ponce, who during the shooting of the film took over the leading position on the so-called torero list and now receives two to five hundred thousand guilders a fight. This partly staged, partly documentary story unfolds through associative images. A large number of fighting scenes and Ponce's story are intertwined with shots of a stock-breeder and of a small boy who wants to become a torero himself. The torero's inner-voice supports this associative structure. Romance de Valentía was shot by the New York camerawoman Ellen Kuras. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)