• El señor Liberto y los pequeños placeres, by Ana Serret; Escorèu, 24 de diciembre de 1937, by Ramón Lluís Bande and Mis vecinos, crónica de unas elecciones, by Joseph Gordillo, are among the selected feature films.

• The projects El cuarto reino, Meseta, My mexican bretzel, This Film is about Me, Cuando cierro los ojos and Mercedes, selected for Final Cut, the 1st Professional Documentary Film Forum of Madrid.

• The festival announces the film series From the Feminine, which focuses on documentary films made by and about women.

   

The 15th edition of DocumentaMadrid announces the twenty films included in the National Feature Film Competition and National Short Film Competition, which will be screened at Cineteca Madrid between May 3 and May 13, 2018.

The selected features deal with diverse themes, such as the intimate and feminist perspective of Ainhoa: Yo no soy ésa, directed by Carolina Astudillo; a portrait of Franco-era crimes in Escorèu, 24 de diciembre de 1937, by Ramón Lluís Bande; and the up-close look at death in El señor Liberto y los pequeños placeres, by Ana Serret.

Some of the other films in the competitive section are Mis vecinos, crónica de unas elecciones (Mes voisins, chronique d’une élection), a reflection by Joseph Gordillo on the reasons for the rise of the extreme right in Europe; Impulso, by Emilio Belmonte,  which focuses on Rocío Molina, a promising new flamenco dancer; Rêve de mousse, the exciting adventure film by Elena Molina set in the context of the globalized fishing sector; Everyone in Hawaii has a Sixpack Already, a film about teenage life, directed by Marvin Hesse; Tódalas mulleres que coñezo, by Xiana do Teixeiro, which centers on social inequality between men and women; and La Grieta, which tackles the issue of home foreclosures through the eyes of Alberto García and Irene Yagüe.

The nine feature films will compete for the Jury Prize - to be awarded 10,000 euros and a trophy - for the Special Mention of the Jury, and for the Cineteca Madrid Audience Award for best feature film, which will, for the first time, be awarded 5,000 euros, in addition to the winning film premiering at the Cineteca Madrid theaters.

The short films selected to the National Competition are: A Mythology of Pleasure, by Lara Rodríguez;  El espectáculo, by Alejandro Pérez; En esas tierras, by Nayra Sanz; En lugar de nada, by Brenda Boyer;  Flora o fauna, by Alberte Pagán; Galatée à l’infini, by Maria Chatzi, Fátima Flores, Julia Maura, Mariangela Pluchino and Ambra Reijnen; Horta, by Pilar Palomero; Improvisaciones de una ardilla, by Virginia García del Pino; Mikele, by Ekhiñe Etxebarria; Un verano en Madrid, by Juan Andrés Coéllar, Javier Extremera and Joaquín Hermo; and Wan Xia, la última luz del atardecer, by Silvia Rey.

These eleven short films will be awarded the Jury Prize - to receive 5,000 euros and trophy-, the Special Mention of the Jury, and the Cineteca Madrid Audience Award for best short film, to receive 2,500 euros and the winning film premiering in its theaters.

From the Feminine
 

One new feature in year's 15th edition of DocumentaMadrid is the film series From the feminine, in which a selection of eight documentaries directed by women provides "a constellation of viewpoints" reflecting on love, patriarchy, tradition, fear, personal improvement, family, feminism and freedom.

This series is to be made up of eight titles, including four international productions: the award-winning Baronesa, by Juliana Antunes (Brazil), and I Used to Sleep on the Rooftop, by Angie Obeid (Lebanon and Qatar), as well as Djamilia, by Echard Aminatou (France) and Yours in Sisterhood, by Irene Lusztig (United States), the latter two having recently made their premieres at the Berlin Film Festival and which will be making their Spanish premieres at DocumentaMadrid. The other four films rounding out this series are also taking part in the festival's various competitive sections. They are Ainhoa: Yo no soy ésa, Tódalas mulleres que coñezo, Mikele and Amanecer by Carmen Torres (Spain and Colombia).

Six projects selected to the 1st edition of Final Cut
 

The Final Cut Professional Film Forum, organized by DocumentaMadrid, presents the six projects that have been selected to participate in this first edition, for which over ninety works-in-progress currently in advanced stages of editing or postproduction were submitted.

The films in competition are the Spanish productions El cuarto reino, by Alex Lora and Adán Aliaga; Meseta, by Juan Palacios; My Mexican Bretzel, by Nuria Giménez; and This Film is about Me, by Alexis Delgado. Also participating are the Spanish-Mexican co-productions Cuando cierro los ojos, by Sergio Blanco and Michelle Ibaven; and the Spanish-Brazilian Mercedes, by Isabella Lima.

The projects have been selected by the director and producer at Lolita Films Lola Mayo, and the producer of Estudi Playtime, Marta Andreu, who will also be doing a workshop and will be leading the forum, to be held from May 7 to 11 at the Plató and Workshop at the Matadero Madrid.

Parrticipants will also get personalized advice from three international professionals: Luciano Barisone, journalist and film critic, and formerly the artistic director of the Festival dei Popoli (Florence) and Visions du Réel (Nyon); Isabel Monteiro, editor and teacher; and Carlos Esbert, researcher, teacher and filmmaker, director of the Masters in Creative Documentary Filmmaking, Experimental Film and Video Creation at the TAI School.

This year's total prize-winnings will total 22,000 euros to be divided among the Image Postproduction Award, with a value of 10,000 euros to be granted by the post-production company Aracne Digital Cinema; the Sound Postproduction Prize, with a value of 7,000 euros to be granted by DRAX audio; and the Distribution Award, granted by the Festhome platform and 36 Caracteres, with support for completing the project worth 4,000 euros and 1,500 euros, respectively.

The 1st Final Cut forum is an initiative of DocumentaMadrid for the purpose of providing support to independent, auteur documentary feature films to further their future and to create a space for reflecting and consulting among audiovisual professionals.

*FRONT IMAGE: Everyone in Hawaii has a Sixpax Already, Marvin Hesse

Stills of the Feature Films
Stills of the Short Films

To arrange reporting / interviews, please contact:

Beatriz Asín / Beatriz Cebas
Communication Team DocumentaMadrid
Las Espigadoras
prensa@documentamadrid.com / prensa2@documentamadrid.com

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