Galician Cinema
by Beli Martínez
Over the last few years, Play-Doc has been a showcase for many of the filmmakers working in Galicia in the realm of documentary filmmaking. This year, world-renown and established directors are presented alongside new voices; contemporary filmmakers who have found the realm of non-fiction filmmaking to be the ideal place to explore new forms, techniques and technology.
Now that documentaries are no longer thought to be merely objective representations of reality, today this filmic form enjoys renewal and questions the more traditional cinematic forms, offering a panorama of infinite possibilities in the world of cinema.
This edition’s focus on Galician cinema will offer up a solid, sophisticated and multi-faceted discourse in this regard. Here, the documentary form becomes a point of convergence between creators from such disparate areas as animation, photography and fiction film. Once again, reality-based filmmaking acts as a unifying force, revealing the strength and vitality of artistic creation in Galicia. At this point, it is important to recall the words of Rimbaud: “Hold on to a step once taken. One must be absolutely modern”.
AYSHA
Photography: Javier Álvarez
Producers: Fion Cortizo, Alexandre Cancelo.
Music: Fran Márquez
Aysha is a young and energetic voice that emerges strongly in the Middle East. Poetry and creativity are their weapons to change an expectant society after the Arab Spring.
Contact
foncortizo@gmail.com
ESQUECE MONELOS
Photography: Jaime Pérez
Producers: Marta Eiriz, Gaspar Broullón, Sepi Bazarra.
Editing: Sandra Sánchez
Music: Sergio Pena
There are more neurons in one single human brain than particles in the universe. But if we could manage to line them up, we would see nothing but a small river. A minor river, and yet infinite. Monelos is not only a film about a forgotten river that runs inside a sewer. It’s a film about our own secret flows.
Contact
marta@dangadanga.com
LA FUGA DE LOS 45
Photography: Eduardo Vasco
Producer: Carlos Fernández
Editing: David Escusa
Sound: Arturo Aguilar
Illustration: Javier Caamaño
On June 2nd, 1978, a group of prisoners from The Modelo of Barcelona carried out a major jailbreaks in the history of Spain. Almost 40 years later, José Antúnez Becerra, one of the main protagonists of the escape, remembered what happened as a fact that, definitely, marked a before and after in his life.
Contact
lafuga45@gmail.com
LENDA NEGRA
Photography: Sara Gallego
Producers: Elisa Celda, Óscar Vincentelli, Mario Sanz, Claudia Gracia.
Editing: Chiayu Lin
Sound: Angie He
The search of the legend of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, o home lobo, provided by four young filmmakers who repeat their path during a nocturnal tour arround villages and galician forests. The look trough the invinsible, there where endures over time, at present night looking for a past andlost ghost.
Contact
distribucion@ecam.es
MONTAÑAS ARDIENTES QUE VOMITAN FUEGO
Sound: Juan Carlos Blancas
The interior of the earth becomes a refuge from the threat that moved closer and closer to the island. The volcanic tubes serve as communication vessels between time and space. This is where they test their resistance.
Contact
helenagiron@gmail.com
O EQUILIBRIO DOS OPOSTOS
Producers: Alberto Baamonde
Editing: Alberto Baamonde
Sound: Martiño Méndez
Post production: David Machado, Javier Pato.
Music: Raúl Mon
In November 2014, chef Javier Olleros had to close his prestigious one Michelin star restaurant “Culler de Pau” in O Grove, Spain. A situation that was out of his control was about to ruin his life and that of his family, until Olleros decided to turn it around and realize a professional dream. A film about overcoming adversity, family and the redemptive power of cuisine.
Contact
info@zinqin.com
QUIASMA
Assistant director: Iria Ares
Photography: Miguel Mariño, Tono Mejuto
Producer: Tono Mejuto
Performer: Javier Martín
Music: Oleg Karavaychuk
Quiasma’ is a video-dance piece that captures the research and choreographic creation process of Javier Martín for his work ‘the exform’, performed for the first time in September 2016 in the Teatro Colón of A Coruña, Spain.
We are fortunate to welcome the star of the film, who will be in attendance at the opening of the festival. Contemporary artist Javier Martín will present his choreographed piece commutatio, with music given to him by composer Oleg Karavaichuk.
Contact
tonomejuto@gmail.com
RAPA DAS BESTAS
Sound: Juan Carlos Blancas
Tradition and performance show us the physical relationship between man and animal when in combat.
| film in preview
Contact
jaione@esnatu.com
RUST
Performance and sound recording: Chris Porcarelli
Producers: Michael Krotkiewski
Editing: Félix Duque
Sound editor: Leandros Ntounis
Post production: Vicky Miha
A deserted, snow-covered landscape. An unknown place and time. An anonymous, timeless man slides into a devastated industrial building. He is enclosed by ruins and rust, witnesses of time. He advances among shadows and debris, following a ritual as precise as it is cryptic. Polyphony of materials. The past resonates at every step. Echoes of a presence. A solitary figure fluctuates on an abyss.
Contact
eloydseren@gmail.com
MANUEL VILARIÑO. SER LUZ
Producers: José Manuel Moutiño
Scriptwriter: Alberto Ruiz de Samaniego, José Manuel Mouriño.
Music: Richard Wagner, Antonio Vivaldi, Benedetto Marcello.
Ser Luz (Being Light) is a photographic exploration of the work of Galician photographer Manuel Vilariño (Spanish National Photography Award 2008) through some of the more frequent motifs populating his extensive body of work: the animal gaze, the limits to what is observable, the sea and fire, and even references to the writings and biography of poet José Ángel Valente.
Contact
madeleineproducciones@gmail.com
UNA VEZ FUIMOS SALVAJES
Photography: Michal Babinec
Producers: Gabriel Azorín, Gomnzalo Martínez, Carmen Bellas.
Editing: María Antón Cabot
Screenplay: María Antón Cabot, Carmen Bellas.
Sound: Clara Alonso
Music: Emilio Lorente
‘When we were wild’ is an imagined conversation between the author and the neighbourhood of San Cristóbal, in the outskirts of Madrid. It is a constant game between form and essence, that confronts the narrator’s prejudice with the spectator’s emotions; a free and evoking tour that progressively abandons a classic documentary structure to become a first person essay
Contact
natalia@playtimeaudiovisuales.com
VAI CHOVER
Photography: Santiago D. Risco
Producers: Santiago D. Risco
Sound: Jonathan Herraiz
In an old box of Havana cigars there are numerous texts in rusted papers. Many of them are written on the back of ballots from the fascist regime. They’re from the grandfather of the filmmaker. His mother gave them to him; she had already transcribed them to the computer.
The director revives them. He starts to ask for these texts and the memories that surround them.
But there are parts of the past that cannot be portrayed.
Contact
santiagodrisco@gmail.com