Documenta Madrid, the International Film Festival promoted by Madrid City Council, has presented this morning in the Sala Azcona of Cineteca the complete program of the 17th edition, that will take place between December 9th and 13th in Cineteca Madrid, Museo Reina Sofía, Filmoteca Española and Nave 0 of Matadero Madrid, and until December 20th, and for the first time in the festival’s history, in the VOD platform Filmin.

Gonzalo de Pedro, artistic director of Cineteca Madrid, has pointed out in the press conference that “the idea of contributing  through cinema to make the world a better place has been a constant thought in this year’s edition construction as well as the determination of celebrating the festival in 2020. Both guest commissioners and the festival, Cineteca, Matadero and cooperating venues teams have work hard to adapt it to these unusual circumstances. And they have done it motivated by the belief that cinema, whether it is in a theatre or through internet, is a meeting place”.

The guest artistic commissioners of this edition, Cecilia Barrionuevo -artistic director of the International Film Festival of Mar del Plata-, and James Lattimer -Berlinale Forum programmer- declared that “from the beginning, our objective in Documenta Madrid 2020 has always been showcasing everything that can be cinema, no matter its length, formats, ways or cultural codes, as well as the capacity to surpass the frontiers that traditionally divided the documental, essay and fiction forms. Documenta Madrid is not only a documentary film festival anymore, but a festival to celebrate and defend cinema”.

Furthermore, the commissioners have celebrated “the availability of a considerable part of Documenta 2020 program in Spain thanks to our partnership with Filmin, and extend the possibilities of enjoying it to those who live outside of Madrid and have accompanied the Festival all these years.”

48 titles will compete in the Official Section
The tension between autobiography and auto-fiction, new or impossible worlds, political essays, fictions around people or real experiences, or filmed theory are some of the themes in the 98 films of this edition, coming from 21 countries. An interdisciplinary edition that shows a complex and humanistic vision of the world and surpasses the frontiers of cinematographic genres, going beyond documentary films in the program, as well physical ones, celebrating the festival for the first time in the VOD platform Filmin.

The International Competition, that can be seen both in Cineteca Madrid and online in Filmin, starts with 16 celebrated titles, some of them very expected, like ‘Anunciaron tormenta’ by Javier Fernández Vázquez, that was presented in the past Berlinale’s Forum, or ‘Correspondencia’, a documentary directed by Dominga Sotomayor and Carla Simón, winner of the Best New Director Goya Award in 2017 for ‘Verano 1993’. Other well-known author’s works join the festival, such as Nicolás Pereda, presenting ‘Mi piel, luminosa’ with Gabino Rodríguez, Heinz Emigholz with ‘The Last City’, ‘A Shape of Things to Come’, by Lisa Malloy and JP Sniadecki, or ‘Subject To Review’ by Theo Anthony. Films awarded in some of the most prestigious international festivals will also be part of the International Competition, such as ‘Playback. Ensayo de una despedida’, by Agustina Comedí, Best Short Film in Festival Mar de Plata, ‘Sahara Street’ by Hassen Ferhani, awarded at Festival de Locarno, ‘Communicating Vessels’, by Maider Fortuné and Annie Macdonell, Best Short Film in Rotterdam International Film Festival, ‘This is Not a Burial, It´s a Resurrection’, by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, awarded in Sundance, or ‘Tendre’, by Isabel Pagliai, awarded in Indie Lisboa.

The National Competition, exclusively screened in Cineteca Madrid, features 16 titles this year, such as ‘A media voz’ by Heidi Hassan and Patricia Pérez, awarded with the Best Direction in the past International Film Festival of Málaga ‘Meihõdõ’ by Jorge Suárez-Quiñones Rivas, ‘La sangre es blanca’, by Oscar Vincentelli,  ‘Gorría (Rojo)’ by Maddi Barber, or ‘Notas sobre a habitabilidade en A Barca’ by Cinema Semente collective, among others. Besides, and aligning with the porosity and openness of the program, it includes films that go beyond the frontiers of art and cinema, like ‘Ojos / Ojos /Ojos / Ojos’ by Albert García-Alzórriz, or ‘Agiña’, by the artist María Sánchez.

This year the International Competition Fugas can be seen exclusively in Filmin and will include titles like ‘FREM’ by Viera Čákanyová, ‘Responsabilidad empresarial’ by Jonathan Perel, ‘Come Coyote’ by Dani Leventhal ReStack and Sheilah ReStack, ‘Irmandade’  by Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado, and the Spanish releases of ‘Look Then Below’ by Ben Rivers, ‘Heliconia’ by Paula Rodríguez Polanco, or ‘Explaining the Law to Kwame’, by the Israeli artist Roee Rosen.

Special Screenings and Retrospectives
The opening film of the festival on December 9th will be the Spanish release of ‘Hopper/Welles’, a lost conversation between Dennis Hopper and Orson Welles directed and shot by Welles in 1970. The closing of the festival will take place on Sunday December 13th with the global premiere of ‘Love with Obstacles’, Dora García’s new film, a whispered biography of the writer, diplomatic and activist Alexandra Kollontai.

The festival will devote two big retrospectives to the film works of Robert Frank and Narcisa Hirsch. Filmoteca Española will host, with the support from the Embassy of Switzerland for Spain and Andorra, a retrospective devoted to one of the greatest photographers of the 20th Century, screening for the first time in Spain his complete film and video works, including the controversial ‘Cocksucker Blues’, a film that portrays a Rolling Stones tour that was self-censored by the band and is only authorised to be screened exceptionally

The Argentinian/German filmmaker and artist Narcisa Hirsch will have a retrospective in Museo Reina Sofía, that will screen 15 essential tittles of her filmography: filmed registers of her performances and happenings, her works in Patagonia and her more experimental and sensorial works.

The festival will host the Spanish releases of films like ‘Her Socialist Smile’, a portrait of  Hellen Keller, the first blind and deaf writer graduating in university, by John Gianvito; ‘The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)’, a film/event of eight hours of duration awarded in the last Berlinale; or the special screening of ‘El Tango del Viudo’ (Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento), the unfinished first film of Raúl Ruiz now finished by his widow, the filmmaker Valeria Sarmiento.  In addition, in the frame of the program ‘Profundidad de campo’ (Focal Depth), Matadero Madrid hosts the exhibition of the filmmaker and visual artist Eric Baudelaire, featuring for the first time in Madrid, thanks to the support of the Institut Français Madrid, works like ‘The Glove’, ‘Walked the Way Home’ or ‘Un film dramatique’.

Educational Program
The festival will continue another year with its educational work through a series of online talks that will be distributed through the official YouTube channel. Dora García Federico Windhausen, Narcisa Hirsch or Eric Baudelaire are among the participants.

International Jury
Documenta Madrid will have an internationally prestigious jury. Eva Sangiorgi, artistic director of the prestigious festival Viennale (Austria), the French-Armenian photographer and filmmaker Valérie Massadian, and the awarded Spanish filmmaker and artist Lois Patiño will be the three members of the jury in the international competition. The Colombian filmmaker Camilo Restrepo, the Director of Contents in MUBI Chiara Marañón and the director of the festival Zinebi Vanesa Fernández will be the jury of the national competition. Haden Guest, director of Harvard Film Archive, Dora García, artist and filmmaker, and Raúl Camargo, director of the International Film Festival of Valdivia (Chile) will be the jury of the International Competition Fugas.

About Documenta Madrid
Documenta Madrid, the International Film Festival promoted by Madrid City Council with the cooperation of cultural venues of the city and organized by Cineteca Madrid, a venue that belongs to the Area of Culture, Tourism and Sports of Madrid City Council, presents its 17th edition, where, for the first time, the films selected in all the sections, will compete in equal conditions and awards, no matter the length of the works. “We thought it was important that the festival promotes its support creative freedom, not generating differences or categories regarding the length of the films”, the artistic commissioners declared.

With an economic prize of more than 45.000 €, the program of Documenta Madrid 2020 is structured in three big sections: International Competition, including national or international productions or coproductions never screened in Madrid; National Competition, including Spanish productions or coproductions, as well as works of Spanish directors; and International Competition Fugas, a section opened to works that explore the limits of the audiovisual language, where national or international productions or coproductions can be seen.

Each of these competitive sections will give two awards: The Jury Award for the Best Film, rewarded with 10.000 €, and the Special Jury Award, rewarded with 5.000 €.  The Jury will be able to concede a maximum of two special mentions to two films of the competitive sections awarded with diploma. In addition, they will be able to opt to the audience awards of Cineteca Madrid, that will, be chosen by the audience votes (both in theatres and online), each one awarded with 1.000 €. This year the audience will award three films, one of each competitive section.

The Winners of Documenta Madrid 2020 will be made public on Sunday December 13th. Most of the awarded films can be seen in Filmin until December 20th, increasing the opportunities for the audience to enjoy the winning works.

The 17th  edition of the festival can exist thanks to sponsoring and cooperating organizations, such as Acción Cultural Española AC/E thanks to the Program for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture (PICE), ICAA, Institut Français Madrid, Switzerland Embassy to Spain and Andorra, Goethe Institut, Austria Cultural Forum, Confucio Institute y ALOFT Gran Vía.