DocumentaMadrid 2017
This section of the international festival will feature the world premiere of 7 films.
DOCUMENTAMADRID International Documentary Film Festival, which is organised by Madrid City Council, will be held from 4 to 14 May in Cineteca. Its National Competition section will feature 9 feature films and 12 short films, which will compete to take home various awards. This year the competition will feature the world premiere of the feature films Adentro by Pau Coll Sánchez, Paisaxes da Capelada by Alberto Lobelle –who has competed in this competition in the past, with Matisse se escribe con dos eses– and the French-Spanish co-production Ladrillo by Quentin Ravelli. With respect to short films, this edition will feature the international premiere of Dies de Festa by Clara Martínez Malagelada, 25 Cines/Seg by Luis Macías, Kafeneio by Nuria Giménez Lorang and Andrekale by Maria Ibarretxe and Alaitz Arenzana. Finally, the feature film Ala-Kachuu by Roser Corella and the short film Cucli by Xavier Marrades will premiere in Spain at the festival.
Films that have received awards at prestigious festivals
In addition to screening unreleased films, in its National Competition section DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017 will screen films that have received awards at prestigious international competitions, including the feature film Converso by David Arratibel, which won the Audience Award at the 11th edition of the Punto de Vista Festival and the Award for Best Director in the Official Documentary Film Section of the 20th edition of the Malaga Festival. At this same competition the British-Spanish production Donkeyote by Chico Pereira also took home the Audience Award; the film premiered in the last edition of the Rotterdam Festival. For its part, the Spanish-Mexican coproduction El remolino by Laura Herrero Garvín –which premiered internationally at the 70th edition of the Locarno Festival– also received a Mention by the Jury at the Mérida and Yucatán International Film Festival.
Various films will also be screened in the short film category, including Cucli by Xavier Marrades, which took part in the 30th edition of the IDFA and won the Award for Best Short Film at the Cartagena de Indias Festival, The Fourth Kingdom by Alex Lora Cercos and Adán Aliaga, which won the Mini-Doc Award at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (Montana, USA), and Cabeza de orquídea by Violeta Blasco, Germán López, Carlotta Napolitano, Angélica Sánchez and Claudia Zegarra, which won the SGAE Award for Best New Director at the 49th edition of the Sitges Festival and participated in the Visions du Réel Festival.
Aesthetic and thematic diversity in a line-up of films distinguished by self-reflection, condemnation and humour.
Worthy of a special mention is the number of female directors competing for awards in the festival. One example is Ángeles Huerta, with her film Esquece monelos. The film, which took part in the Play-Doc Festival in Tui, engages in a lyric and choral reflection via the history of a forgotten river in A Coruña. It’s a film about the currents that run beneath our own lives.
For her part, in Ala-Kachuu filmmaker Roser Corella reveals the sordid practice of kidnapping women who are forced to marry their captors in Kirgizstan. Enrique Baró Ubach reflects on the boundaries between fiction and documentary in La película de nuestra vida –which took part in the Seville European Film Festival–, crafting an unusual self-portrait through the experiences of three different generations over the course of a sunny shared summer. Of particular note, as well, is the portrait of 5 prisoners who use their own recordings, taken over the course of a year, to show their daily life in a juvenile detention centre in Catalonia, in Adentro by Pau Coll Sánchez.
In the short film category, El mundanal ruido by David Muñoz López –which was screened at the 20th edition of the Malaga Festival– offers an ironic look at the filmmaking process through multiple experiences linked together in a search for our country’s folklore. Tigger by Iban del Campo –the second instalment in the Dirty Martini trilogy– portrays a character who is one of the most prominent exponents of the “neo-burlesque” that has experienced a revival on New York’s off-off Broadway scene.
In El becerro pintado by David Pantaleón –which made its international debut at the Rotterdam Festival –an ingenious parable unfolds on the subject of veneration of the material. The festival will also feature Sub Terrae, the new film by Nayra Sanz Fuentes, which will take part in the Las Palmas International Festival and is a total sensory experience. Finally, No hablo rumano by Rocío Montaño shows the experiences of a director bent on offering a first-hand portrait of Romani culture through one of her acquaintances, whose journey won’t be free from obstacles.
NATIONAL COMPETITION:
FEATURE FILMS:
SHORT FILMS:
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