The plot is set against the backdrop the 'Golden Apple' literary prize, with a heterogeneous group of poets vying for the prize attending to a manor house in northwestern Iberia. Sex, crushes and hidden secrets coming to light unfold among the attendees.[1][2]
An adaptation of Fernando Aramburu's novel Ávidas pretensiones,[6] the screenplay was penned by José Ángel Esteban and Jaime Chávarri.[7] The film is a Lapiruletaylamanzana AIE, La Piruleta Films and Boavista Filmes production,[8] and it had the participation of RTVE and backing from Deputación de Ourense [es].[9] It was shot in the pazo of Bentraces and other locations of the province of Ourense.[10]
Release
The film was selected for the main competition of the 67th Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci).[11] However, the film was announced as part of the slate of 27th Ourense International Film Festival [es] (OUFF). Upon this reveal, the film was thus removed from the Seminci slate as it was against the festival regulations preventing the screenings of films with a previous public screening in Spanish territory.[12]La manzana de oro was thus presented in the OUFF closing gala on 30 September 2022,[13] whereas Vasil took its place in the Seminci official selection.[14]
Distributed by A Contracorriente Films,[9] the film was released theatrically in Spain on 1 September 2023.
Reception
Toni Vall of Cinemanía rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, deeming the film —"a beautiful and poetic nonsense"—to be "mind-boggling, incomprehensible, absurd, no just simply old-fashioned but outdated to the seventieth power".[15]
Javier Ocaña of El País wrote that the film "starts off poorly and struggles to find its tone", considering it not to be found precisely among Chávarri's good films.[16]
Carmen Puyó of Heraldo de Aragón rated the film 2 out of 5 stars, assessing that it "does not quite work".[2]