THE ART OF COLLECTING THE FILMS THAT COME TO US
Programming a festival is a lot like tending a garden. We need an attentive, loving, and passionate look at all the elements of the ecosystem. And spend time there to be able to see, hear and, above all, feel. And being able to get excited, this rarity in the frenetic world we live in. Because, what is a programmer but a person sensitive to the beauty of life?
It is only in this certain stillness of contemplation that we can understand the importance of some flowers but also allow ourselves to be surprised by others that come to meet us. And this is surely the best gift of programming. When you feel that there are films that are so important that they have sought you out, as if they had been guided by an invisible energy. When I say important, I'm obviously not talking about established names or industry dynamics, but rather about the honest artistic gesture from which those films we will remember forever are born.
That is why I am very grateful to have the privilege of programming because, it must be said, it is a privilege. And to do it with a group of people full of this desire for beauty like Alba, Heidi, Joan, Raquel, Diego and Àngels. People who, despite the rhythm imposed by life, look for the necessary moments for contemplation.
In the last year, films that have come to us fascinate us for their delicate way of suggesting ways to unlearn, this activity that no one talks about, but which is so important because it is the only way to be able to later discover new ways of thinking, being and feeling life, and also to discover new ways of relating to each other. The constant cycle of the old and the new that the documentary can capture in all its fragility and in all its potential.
Anna Petrus
MAY RECOMMENDATIONS
A life like any other - Faustine Cros
"A film that destroys the idealisation of the mother figure and uncovers the fragility of a woman who struggles for her mental health"
Faustine's father immortalized in family films the most beautiful moments of his life, or that's what he thought. Today, the filmmaker returns to these films to tell another story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother slowly taking away her freedom.
A life like any other will be screened in more than 70 cinemas in Spain during the month of June as part of the Docs del Mes cycle and will premiere on Thursday 6 June at 7.30pm at the Cinemes Girona in Barcelona.
"What remains of love when death takes the person you love? Echo of you gleans images, sensations, smells, moments of octogenarian people who talk about the great loves of their lives"
Through candid and revealing interviews, Echo of You presents a group of Danish men and women, all aged 80 and over, who, with touching honesty, share their thoughts on their partners, the desolation of losing them, and the ways in which life goes on.
Mexican Dream - Laura Plancarte
"Laura Plancarte offers an unprecedented portrait of a Latin American woman victim of an abusive relationship. The film shatters all stereotypes and offers us the luminous strength of a woman who manages to find a new life"
Malena had her tubes tied after an abusive relationship and fled to Mexico City seeking a better life, but her ex-husband got custody of her children despite her fight. Today she has a new partner and is finishing the house where she dreams of living with her three teenage children and a new baby. However, she needs IVF treatment if she is to have a second chance now that she's older. Feeling abandoned, Malena’s children punish her while her partner threatens to leave if the IVF fails. Will she be able to pull everyone together and make her dreams come true?
Mexican Dream has won the Award for Best Documentary Film at the 27th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival of Barcelona DocsBarcelona
