El cine que viene: round table discussion

Round table discussion about 21st-century Spanish documentary film

The documentary has changed the 21st-century Spanish film scene. It was the genre that first adapted to new digital video technology, attracting many creative artists born in the seventies and the eighties onwards. The documentary unblocked the dead-end street in which nineties Spanish fiction had found itself, becoming the quintessential format of 21st-century independent cinema and the winning genre for Spanish film at international festivals.

Writing on this subject has spread like wildfire in recent years and the same can be said for the numerous festivals screening documentary films, a reflection of this new cultural reality from halfway through the first decade of the century. Courses, master's degrees and specific studies are growing exponentially and the culture of the documentary is gradually making a comeback in commercial cinemas, with many showing an open attitude to the new trend or opting to only screen this genre.

The documentary is growing at an unstoppable pace and challenging its aesthetic boundaries, firstly in the reality versus fiction debate and then moving towards sensory, performative or dreamlike formulas, including hybrid formats with literary or fictional film genres.

At “El cine que viene” we believe it’s absolutely essential to discuss the phenomenon and argue for its cultural importance and specificity in terms of its promotion by the Public Administration.

Participants:
Elías León Siminiani. Film Maker
Gonzalo de Pedro. Film Programmer
María Luisa Ortega. Academic
Luís Ferrón. Producer

SAMUEL ALARCÓN and "El cine que viene".

A film-maker and journalist, he obtained a grant to attend the Spanish Royal Academy in Rome, where he produced his first full-length film, La ciudad de los signos (City of Signs) (2009). He has been working on Spanish National Radio since 2007 and in 2013 he started broadcasting El cine que viene on Radio 5. The programme provides a space for promoting Spanish independent film and its cultural diversity on public radio. He is currently preparing his second solo full-length film venture, Oscuro y lucientes (Goya's Skull), backed by the Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute (ICAA) and Spanish state television broadcaster TVE.