The Government Delegate for Arts, Sports and Tourism of the Madrid City Council, Mr. Fernando Villalonga, has presented this morning the programme of DOCUMENTA MADRID, together with the new Festival directors, Mikel Olaciregui and Vicente Mozo.
The International Documentary Cinema Festival of Madrid, DOCUMENTA MADRID, celebrates its 10th Edition from the 5th till the 12th of May, and coinciding with this anniversary, it renews its programme, reducing the number of sections and concentrating the competition in a unique Official Selection, made up of two competitive sections which will include this year’s best productions not yet premiered in Spain, giving priority to the quality of the selected films, regardless of their country of origin.
As Mr. Villalonga underlines in his Festival’s leading article, “today, more than ever, moving images constitute the most important depiction of our society. DOCUMENTARY CINEMA, or CINEMA OF REALITY, takes on a leading role as witness of what surrounds us in this Audiovisual Era”. Thus, during an intense whole week, DOCUMENTA MADRID opens a wide window which will enable the Madrid audience to see the world around us, enjoying the 75 chosen films selected from more than 1,100 applications from 84 different countries from all continents.
The Festival opens this year, as Mikel Olaciregui points out, “with the double aim of strengthening its position as reference festival amongst those which take place in Madrid, and continuing its unstoppable and necessary ascent in the ranking of the worldwide documentary genre festivals”. Above all, DOCUMENTA MADRID aims at becoming the “annual meeting point for professionals, creators and their audience”.
With this in mind, DOCUMENTA MADRID will be attended by many of the directors and producers of the selected films. Professionals from all over the world will be able to share their experiences and projects with the Madrid audience both at the premiere presentations of the showings and the “Chats in the Canteen”. Every day, at 13:00 hours, at the Cineteca Canteen, there will be casual meetings chaired by various journalists between the film directors and producers and the audience.
The Official Selection will be divided into two categories:
Feature Films (more than 60 minutes’ duration) whose character favours the narrative view, information and/or the social interest of the world’s current news. Fourteen titles in the competitive section (two of them Spanish productions) and an extra film, non-competitive, will make up the selection of first-class films worldwide.
Short Films (30 minutes’ maximum duration and not belonging to a serial): an international selection composed of eighteen competitive films from fifteen different countries (including one Spanish production) and one non-competitive film.
Two different International Juries, composed of professionals with a long career in the documentary cinema field, will decide the endowed Awards granted to the three best films in each category. The audience will also have a say, voting for those works which they preferred and granting the Audience Award.
The festival will also include two non-competitive sections which will be dedicated in this edition to the national production:
Panorama of the Spanish Documentary Cinema will gather the most relevant films produced in our country in the last months and which have not yet been premiered in Madrid. This interesting section includes 13 feature films and 5 short films which will offer the audience a snapshot of the Spanish documentary production.
Retrospective: Documentary Cinema during Spain’s Transition: this is a trip to one of the richest and most thrilling years in the history of Spanish documentary cinema, the Transition years, which will enable the spectator to review essential films as well as to discover new proposals and views of the period. The section will be closed with the presentation of the book “LAS VOCES DEL CAMBIO. LA PALABRA EN EL DOCUMENTAL DURANTE LA TRANSICIÓN EN ESPAÑA” (“The Voices of Change. The Voice of Documentary Cinema During Spain’s Transition”) and with two round-table conferences which will take place at the Taller Matadero.
Venues
CINETECA is the official Festival Headquarters, hosting the screenings of the two competitive sections and the Panorama of the Spanish Documentary Cinema.
On the other hand, DOCUMENTA MADRID keeps cooperating with other venues, extending the screenings of the Retrospective: “Documentary Cinema during Spain’s Transition” to the Cine Doré (Filmoteca Española) and keeping within its programme the cycle organized by Casa de América on The Mexican Documentary Cinema: Elena Fortes’ Carte Blanche, selected by the director of the Festival Ambulante. Coinciding with the dates of the festival, Casa Árabe has programmed a cycle on the Middle East seen through documentary cinema.
Other Non-Official Awards:
CANAL + Award to the Best Documentary: CANAL + collaborates with Documenta Madrid 2013 granting an award to the Best Documentary Film within the section Panorama of the Spanish Documentary. The award will consist of the acquisition of the broadcasting rights of the winning film for its programming within the channel network of CANAL +. It will be CANAL + who will choose the winner according to its production and artistic values.
The Official Short Film Selection will also offer three “non-official” awards but which hold a great interest for the winners.
Freak Award: The Independent Cinema Agency FREAK will grant a special award to aid in the distribution of the most voted Official Selection Short Film by the audience and will consist of the free distribution of the documentary film in 50 international festivals for a period of six months.
Master IPECC Award to the Best Documentary Short Film: The Postgraduate Institute for Cultural and Communication Studies (IPECC) will grant an award to the Best Documentary Short Film. The award will be granted by a specific jury composed of students and teachers from the current Masters Degree, and will grant the director of the winning short a complete scholarship to take part in the II Master in Documentary Film Direction and Production organized by the IPECC at the Casa del Lector, where the winner will be able to prepare his/her first feature film project.
Round-table conferences, book reviews and other complementary activities wind up a schedule planned to allow the Madrid audience to enjoy, discover and share the best documentary cinema of the moment.
