Within the framework of the European Film Academy Awards in Seville, the Festival will organise a meeting between Andalusian short film makers participating in Andalusian Panorama and the European short film makers nominated for the EFA awards and who will be in Seville in December.
This edition of the Seville Festival makes a quantitative leap as regards titles prdocued in Andalusia in compairson to previous programmes. More films, more short films and more fiction, which will offer a wonderful view of the talent that has arisen in Andalusia. For the first time in the history of the Festival we will be showing two feature films by Jesús Ponce ('15 días contigo'), in the same edition: 'La primera cita' is a story of love and redemption, the portrait of a couple marked by illness, which its director defines as an “amiable drama”, and which has Isabel Ampudia, Sebastián Haro, Mercedes Hoyos and Víctor Clavijo in the cast. Ponce will also present 'La última toma', a documentary which reconstructs the forgotten figure of the late filmmaker Claudio Guerín Hill, who died in the middle of shooting 'La campana del infierno' (1973), after falling from the top of the Church of St. Martiño while he was shooting one of the last scenes. Lucía Bosé, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba or Juan Diego are some of the witnesses who contribute to defending someone who was one of the great promises of Spanish cinema in the late 60s and early 70s.
Andalusian Panorama will offer the world premiere of three other fiction feature films: Gary Piquer, Cuca Escribano and Rosa Maria Sardà star in 'Segunda oportunidad', a rural, cannabis comedy, directed by Álvaro de Armiñán (who previously participated in the Festival with the TV film 'La soledad del triunfo'), which abounds in humor following the adventures of a man who comes back to his home town after being away for years in order to run a shop selling marijuana seeds. 'El secadero' is the first feature film by Antonio Donaire, a drama with Antonio Estrada and Marta Costa, and which adapts the novel by Pedro Andreu, 'El secadero de iguanas' (edited in Spain by Mueve tu Lengua). 'Try' is the result of the adventure of a group of young people from Almeria led by Ángel de Haro, who filmed in New York, in record time and with a very small budget, the reunion of two friends from adolescence in the Big Apple. Ana Loig and Sergio Moral are the protagonists.
Another of the feature films that can be seen at the #15FestivalSevilla is 'Jaulas', the first feature film by Nicolás Pacheco, produced by Antonio Pérez ('Solas'), and with Estefanía de los Santos, Belén Ponce de León and Antonio Dechent in a powerful social drama that competed in the Official Section of the International Week in Valladolid, in which machismo and precariousness force two women to escape from their home.
DIRECTORS WHO ARE BACK AGAIN
Like Álvaro de Armiñán, other filmmakers have come back to the Seville Festival, reaffirming their link with the festival and showing their professional and creative development: the artist María Cañas (who designed last year’s poster) is premiering the medium length film 'La cosa vuestra', a provocative essay about violence and a hymn to feminist self-defense and to what the artist calls “risastencia”, with humour as an instrument for survival. Focused on the Sanfermines, it is a logical evolution of a previous anti-bullfighting film, 'La cosa nuestra' (2006), in which she put her finger on the wound of the National Fiesta.
After participating last year in Resistances with 'La llave de la memoria', Jesús Armesto brings with him his new documentary, 'Los burgueses de Calais: la última frontera', filmed in The Jungle, a refugee camp where more than 4,500 people survive hoping to be able to get to Great Britain. Someone else who is back, a year after showing 'Samba, un nombre borrado', is Mariano Agudo. On this occasion he has co-written 'La búsqueda' with Daniel Lagares: the film follows the progress of three direct victims of the armed conflict between the State and Shining Path in Peru.
Carlos Rivero (with 'Los terrores de Lydia'), Bruno Ojeda (with 'Mirar'), Mateo Cabeza (with 'Puesto 93'), Bernabé Rico (with 'Todos mis padres'), Edgar Burgos (with ‘Boyplay’), Alonso Valbuena (with 'El penalti'), José Luis Tirado (with 'Madre santa puta') and Bernabé Bulnes (with 'Solo de trompeta') are other repeaters who will be coming with their short films to the Seville Festival.
DOCUMENTARIES AND SHORT FILMS: AUDIOVISUAL WEALTH AND PLURALITY
With some titles still to be confirmed, the Andalusian panorama section will show another two documentary features: 'Tierras solares', by Laura Hojman, reconstructs Rubén Darío’s journey through Andalusia in search of an improvement in his health and acts as a vehicle to talk about beauty. The film, which comes from Valladolid’s International Film Week, has a voiceover by Pedro Casablanc. And 'La España profunda (from Ortega y Gasset to Rocío Jurado)', a filmic essay by Isaías Griñolo that talks about memory through song, poetry and audiovisual archives, and which starts from the work by sculptor Juan de Ávalos, author of the design of the Valle de los Caidos, to reflect on who should be remembered and in what way.
And of note among the short films to be shown are 'Bobinas ovinas (1-7)', by Bruno Delgado; 'Candela', by Jonathan Martínez; 'Las casas que nos quedan', by Rocío Morato; 'Mirada al caos', by Castro Lorenzo; 'Cazatalentos', by José Herrera; 'Domesticado', by Juan Francisco Viruega; 'El miramiento', by Fany de la Chica; 'El prenauta', by Elías Pérez; 'Hotel Royal Co', by Paula Villegas and Rakesh Narwani; 'Nacho no conduce', by Alejandro Marín; 'Prudence', by Concha Alonso; 'Victoria', by Alejandra Perea, or 'After-work', by Manuel Palma. Also, out of competition are 'Campo', by Manu Soriano (winner of the Best Short Film Project at the last edition of the Festival), and 'Coplas mecánicas', by Víctor Hugo Espejo, a documentary about El Niño de Elche and Israel Galván.
Regarding the full offer of short films here, the Seville Festival will act as a framework for the presentation of the new Distribution Catalogue of Andalusian Short Films, edited by the Unidad de Cinematografía y Artes Audiovisuales at the Agencia Andaluza de Instituciones Culturales (Department of Culture of the Andalusian Government) as part of its activities designed to support the sector. There will also be a round table with the short filmmakers who were included in the catalogue and will be present at the act. Also, given that the European Film Academy awards are being presented in Seville, the festival will organize meetings between Andalusian short film makers and the short film makers nominated in this edition of the EFA Awards when they arrive in Seville.
In addition, and in the framework of the Short Film Section of Andalusian Panorama, the Pablo de Olavide University will present the Rosario Valpuesta Award to the Best Short Film (with a cash prize of 1,500 euros), and the Rosario Valpuesta Award to an artistic category in the section (best music, script or direction, with a cash prize of 600 euros). These awards are given by the Jury made up by Asecan, Asociación de Escritores y Escritoras de Cine de Andalucía.
A FESTIVAL COMMITTED TO THE INDUSTRY
With the challenge of finding screens that connect auteurist cinema with its audience and of opening distribution channels, the Seville Festival will continue to form part of Festival Scope, one of the internationally renowned online viewing platforms to which festivals such as Gothenburg, Venice, Sarajevo, Locarno or Karlovy Vary belong. The best known festival programmers, distributors, exhibitors and film critics can access this professional platform to select, buy or review films depending on their interests.
The festival is also committed to female looks: AAMMA (Asociación Andaluza de Mujeres de los Medios Audiovisuales) will organise work days with some of the women directors invited to the Festival, and in collaboration with the SGAE Foundation, will offer a course on Cinema and Laws to tackle the challenges of managing intellectual property in the audiovisual world.