Mallorca, Hollywood and the Bookshelf: Three Stories Shaping the Fall Culture Calendar

Film and storytelling are having a busy autumn. A Mallorca festival that began as one filmmaker’s personal project reaches its 15th edition, the Oscar race has a new documentary frontrunner, and a debut novel about Charlotte Brontë unveils its cover. Together, the three stories show how creative careers start, grow and reach audiences.

How a Frustrated Actress Built a Festival

In 2012, actress-turned-director Sandra Lipski wanted to crown the festival run of her debut short film “Going Down” with a screening in her hometown of Mallorca. She discovered that the thriving island had no film festival of its own. Rather than wait for someone else to fix that, she started one herself.

The result is Evolution Mallorca, which celebrates its landmark 15th edition from Oct. 28 to Nov. 4. Lipski, a German native, moved to the Spanish island as a young girl and later headed to Los Angeles to pursue acting. The 2008 writers’ strike hit just as she stood on the cusp of a big break, and she turned that frustration into her own short film.

“I was so confused about Mallorca not having a film festival,” she said. “Living in the U.S., there was a film festival in every tiny town, and it felt obvious to me the island would have one because it felt like the perfect festival location. I was very young at the time and just decided to try it and see what happens. I pulled some friends together, many Europeans who, like me, were born somewhere else but grew up here, and we created a very well-rounded team.”

A Destination Festival With Star Power

Evolution Mallorca has since grown into a destination festival that showcases cinema from the region and attracts major international names. Past guests include Danny DeVito, Annette Bening, Paul Haggis and Jessica Hausner. This year’s edition looks just as glitzy, with honors going to “Conclave” director Edward Berger, “Black Swan” cinematographer Matthew Libatique, “Inglourious Basterds” actress Diane Kruger and “Triangle of Sadness” star Iris Berben.

The program features over 100 projects and the festival’s largest feature film selection to date. International highlights include Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut,” Danny Boyle’s “Ink” and Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland.” Jordan Firstman’s Cannes favorite “Club Kid” serves as the opening gala.

The Oscar Race Gets a Documentary Shock

Across the Atlantic, the awards season is gathering pace after a run of festivals in Toronto, Zurich and Newport Beach. Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards, attended all three and tracked how contenders played with non-American Academy members. That group matters because of the massive influx of Oscar voters based outside the U.S. in recent years. Academy members numbered in the triple digits at both Toronto and Zurich, and the organization’s CEO attended Zurich’s Summit, which Feinberg calls the “Davos of the film industry.”

Two awards hopefuls opened in theaters this past weekend: A24’s “You Can See Everything” and Netflix’s “La Bola Negra.” The former, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, drew ecstatic reactions after its Telluride world premiere. It holds a 99 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.71 rating on Letterboxd, a new record for the platform.

The box office numbers matter just as much. The film grossed $15 million in its opening weekend, the biggest debut from fewer than 1,000 locations since 2006’s Borat and the biggest documentary debut since 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Academy members, even from the demanding documentary branch, are embracing it. Some voters saw it at an early L.A. screening at the Academy Museum on Oct. 6, and branch members Ryan White and AJ Schnack called it “brilliant” and “incredible,” respectively, on social media.

Still Unseen Contenders and a Star-Studded Gala

Feinberg says he has now seen almost all the high-profile hopefuls, including “Artificial,” “Mr. Irrelevant,” “Wildwood,” “NAZA,” “14th” and “The Social Reckoning.” Only a handful of major titles remain off his charts: “Dune: Part Three,” “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” “Madden” and “Werwulf.” The Academy Museum Gala, where Taylor Swift performed, added more Hollywood glamour to the busy few weeks.

A Debut Novel Revisits the Year Jane Eyre Took Shape

Publishing has its own debut story. Elizabeth Ferris, a writer and writing teacher based in West Virginia, reveals the cover of “Charlotte,” a historical reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s life during the turbulent year she wrote Jane Eyre. The novel follows Brontë as she faces rejection from publishers, financial pressure and expectations that women abandon their literary ambitions. She refuses to surrender her dream of becoming a novelist.

William Morrow will publish the book on April 6, 2027, the anniversary of Jane Eyre’s publication, and pre-orders are open now. Designer Elsie Lyons created the cover. Ferris holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and has taught at the Studio School at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Richmond Young Writers.

Ferris says she avoided picturing a cover while writing, because she wanted to stay inside her subject’s mind.

“I think I didn’t dare conceive of a cover for fear it would break that spell, make me too self-conscious to take on the task of embodying such an iconic and mused-about author,” Ferris said.

Once she began working with her publishing team, her editor Jen and Jen’s assistant Katie invited her to share recent covers she liked and anything she wanted to avoid. As a first-time author, Ferris did not expect that much input, and she found the process both exciting and daunting. The team wanted an element that gestured at the writing process, since the heart of the novel is Brontë’s struggle to produce Jane Eyre. Jen suggested the quill, and the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, which preserves much of the paraphernalia of the Brontë sisters’ writing lives, supplied photographs for reference.

What Connects These Stories

Lipski’s festival, a record-setting documentary and a first novel look unrelated, yet each begins with a creator who refused to wait. Lipski turned a missing festival into a 15-year institution, and Brontë, in Ferris’s telling, kept writing despite rejection. As Evolution Mallorca opens its doors and the Oscar race intensifies, audiences have plenty of new voices to discover.