cinema festival

The 10th edition of the Barcelona International Music Documentary Film Festival will run from October 25th to November 4th this year. To celebrate, the festival will screen the six best films from the last ten years chosen by a public vote in a section named ‘Your 10 Years’. Other initiatives this year include the introduction of the ‘Fan’ ticket which includes extra benefits and the launch of its online platform ‘In-Edit TV’ where it is possible to pay to watch the documentaries online. Alongside this year’s festival is the 3rd edition of the Barcelona International Music Documentary Film Market.

Over 300 short films from more than 35 countries in 12 days. This is the summary of the 14th edition of Mecal, the Barcelona International Short Film Festival, which takes place in the capital of Catalonia until April 29th. In this 2012 edition more than 4,500 short films have been received, 1,000 more than the last edition (about 30% more than 2011). With these figures, Mecal becomes the most important festival of its kind in Spain according to the number of film entries. Mecal’s Director, Roberto Barrueco, explained that the festival’s objective is to show the best of work from Catalonia and across the globe.

In-Edit 2011, Barcelona’s International Music Documentary Film Festival ended its ninth edition after eleven days of showings that gathered 54 national and international new releases and around 30.000 spectators. ‘Next Music Station: Morocco’, a documentary produced by Al-Jazeera and directed by Fermín Muguruza, has been this year’s National Prize winner. The International Prize was for ‘Last Days Here’, about the life of Pentagram’s singer, Bobby Liebing. Another great surprise was the presence of musician Michael Nyman, author of many Hollywood soundtracks.

The 44th edition of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia begins with the presentation of ‘Eva’, a Catalan movie about robots and artificial intelligence. It stars German-Catalan actor Daniel Brühl (‘Inglorious Basterds’, ‘Good bye Lenin’, or ‘The Edukators’) and ACN talked to him. It is the first time a Catalan movie opens this international festival that will run from October 6th until October 16th.

From the 6th through to the 12th of June, thirty movies and a retrospective of filmmaker Ann Hui will be on show in Barcelona. The Casa Àsia Film Week takes over from the Barcelona Asian Film Festival (BAFF) in order to introduce the Catalan audience to the movie industry of one of the most active filmmaking areas in the world.

The British film director Peter Greenaway was the guest of honour at the international documentary festival that took place in Barcelona from the 1st to the 6th of February. With up to 42 screenings all around the city, the festival showcased the crème de la crème of documentary making. In the end, the American documentary 'Foreign Parts' scooped the top award for best film this year and 'Enemies of the People', a chronicle of the horrific genocide of the Khmer Rouge won the Catalan Public Television prize for Human Rights

Lluís Miñarro’s documentary film ‘Finisterrae’ scooped a top award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film is directed by the manager of the International Sònar Music Festival in Barcelona, Sergio Caballero. This was his first ever movie and it was actually the image of last year’s Sónar Festival. Rotterdam’s jury awarded ‘Finisterrae’ impressed for its riskiness.