Javier Marco’s “Face to Face” (“A la cara”), the spin-off from a 2021 Goya winning short, was one of the big winners at this year’s RECLab in Tarragona, Spain which is celebrating its 10th anniversary by doing what it does best: Innovation, which questions many of the often set-in-stone conventions of festivals.

Also among winners at RECLab, part of the Rec – Tarragona Intl. Film Festival, were “Jone Batzuetan,” by Sara Fantova, a director on “This Is Not Sweden,” and “Woman Bites Dog,” from Armand Rovira (“Letters to Paul Morrissey”).

“L’homme Abissal o Phaeophytamón,” by Marina Wagner, an “experimental Gothic tale” as she puts it, won the Málaga Work in Progress Award.

Unveiled at RECLab in true post-production – without color-grading, nor soundwork nor digital effects – the feature “Face to Face” picks up but reworks the basic premise of Marco’s short: Pedro, middle-aged, unshaved, dowdily dressed, opens the door of his house to Lina,...