Fwends and That Summer in Paris excite Cinemajove with the fiery minimalism of superlative cinema.

Not long ago, Santiago Sierra told this same newspaper that one of his old Francoist professors from the Faculty of Fine Arts was convinced that minimalism was synonymous with small, ridiculous, and barely relevant. And the minimalist artist was surprised because, in truth, the one who was portrayed was the professor as, indeed, small, ridiculous, and irrelevant. Sophie Somerville is Australian and Valentine Cadic is French. And both, each in their own way and from a different point on the planet, act as minimalist directors. And that's because theirs is a cinema posed almost as a provocation. What counts is not so much what is seen as what the viewer constructs and imagines around what is being seen. To be more precise, one could say that it is the audience, not the filmmakers, who, with their memories, their recollections, and each and every one of their desires, fashion the deepest part of their films. It sounds tremendous, and, in truth, it is disproportionate. Precisely because of their minimalist nature.

Fwends (which is like Friends, but in a different way), by Sommerville, and That Summer in Paris, by Cadic, tell the story of two women, two cities (Melbourne and the French capital), and two ways of losing oneself in them (the former in the latter). And in both films, the almost minimal plot is put at the service of an indestructible and very surprising desire for discovery. In both cases, the idea is to compose a journey from initial astonishment, perhaps euphoria, to final recognition, with an obligatory stop on subjects such as sadness, disenchantment, perhaps humiliation, and even forgiveness. That both films have brilliantly dominated the opening days of the 40th edition of Cinemajove is something unrelated to the films themselves, but it counts as a programming success and, why not, a cause for enthusiasm.

The Australian film tells the story of two friends (played by Emmanuelle Mattana and Melissa Gan) who reunite after so long. The first travels from Sydney to Melbourne. They have no plans. They just want to see each other, walk, and celebrate being together again. Little by little, the initial rush gives way to something darker. They are no longer the same as they were. One's dream job is, in truth, a cesspool of exploitation and misogyny. The other, on the other hand, has yet to recover from a breakup. And so, side by side, they find themselves lost and sad in a city equally sad and far removed from almost everything, almost everything important. With a staging as witty and free as it is somewhat disturbing, and with just the right elements, Somerville composes in Fwends a patterned ode to what time has come to call growth. Or maturity. Suddenly, the two friends recognize each other in each of their wounds, which, and here's the point, are also everyone's. Brilliant.

Cadic's case is different, but not that different. This time, the film tells of the loneliness of a woman (Blandine Madec) in a city like Paris and at a time like the Olympic Games. The protagonist wanders through the hustle and bustle of streets filled with sporting enthusiasm, not quite knowing why. Perhaps curiosity, perhaps the excitement of the event, or simply the virtue of free time. Meanwhile, she visits her sister, sneaks into the Olympic pool, and walks with her niece. The director says she's interested in exploring loneliness as a space for discovery, that whenever the possibility of a woman alone is raised in film, the immediate implication is drama or danger. And indeed, what That Summer in Paris presents is, above all, a completely new perspective; a new and extremely curious one that appeals equally to documentary, comedy, drama, or, when necessary, intrigue. A pure discovery. Cadic thus crafts the seed of a tiny miracle that grows in the viewer's memory until it reaches the gigantic size of something shared, something common. That's how it is.

Minimalism is undoubtedly there to reach the entire world from the space of a tiny screen, from Paris to Melbourne to Valencia, and through emotion, pure emotion.