SECTIONS // PANORAMA OF THE SPANISH DOCUMENTARY

Ad Ventum (Hacia el viento) (Ad Ventum. Toward the Wind)

Bárbara Mateos García
79' / 2016 / Portugal, Spain
Web: www.adventumfilms.com
Portuguese, Dutch, German
English and spanish subtitled

Ad Ventum helps us to reflect on the different stratums of contemporary loneliness. Imposed loneliness and chosen solitude. At the same time these types of loneliness will have different connotations depending on the relationship with the environment.
Each of the protagonists represents a different type. A forced solitude, like the case of Francilia, Mario and José, who haven’t seen much places other than the one they are living in; Then there is a chosen solitude, which is the case of the German Michel, who often dedicates time to his hobby of building airplane models; Or the Dutch Wynard, who chose to leave the city behind, and lives a quiet and peaceful life.
There will be two main plots linking the different characters: Jose, the bar owner, wants to prepare a party as a farewell for the closure of the cafe and gathering cork, the main source of income for most of the population of this area.
Cork a key metaphor in the film, links the values -isolation, protection- this material represents with this community's remote physical and social setting.

Director's Biography

Bárbara Mateos is a Spanish producer and film-maker.
She has made four short films: Present Perfect in 35mm (2008), Body and Soul (2009), Without Title (2011) and The Customer (2011).
She has a degree in Fine Arts and a Masters in Digital Moving Image Media and Visual Resources at the ECAM (the Madrid Film School).
She is also a member of the IN-DOMESTIC art collective. Their audiovisual piece, " Spirit " (2013), was selected for the VIVHO project, commissioned for the European Parliament. Since twelve years she works as a Colorist at the Spanish television documentary film archive in Madrid. She just finished her first feature documentary located in Portugal: Ad Ventum. Towards the wind (2016). At the moment her second documentary and web-doc (Play it again, Toni) in is the production phase.