{"id":10118,"date":"2022-08-31T12:06:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/?p=10118"},"modified":"2022-08-31T12:19:19","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:19:19","slug":"ficvaldivia-announces-films-in-gala-and-focus-sections-for-29th-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/ficvaldivia-announces-films-in-gala-and-focus-sections-for-29th-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"FICValdivia announces films in gala  and focus sections for 29th edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Gala is the classic section for the great films and authors, showcasing pictures that recently premiered at the top film festivals in the world.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>A highlight of this year is the Focus section, devoted to filmmakers that will travel to Valdivia, specifically to present their filmography: Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues, Elena L\u00f3pez Riera, and the iconic Colectivo Cine Mujer, from M\u00e9xico.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With a return to in-person activity, the Valdivia International Film Festival announces the films in the Gala section, and the Focuses for this 29<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> edition. Festival passes will go on sale on the first days in September, celebrating this version of FICValdivia, taking place October 10 to 16.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>News in the Gala section<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This non-competitive category gathers the latest works by filmmakers who have contributed to expand the horizons in contemporary cinema, through a sense of staging that is marked by a permanent pursuit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first confirmed picture is <\/span><b><i>The Novelist\u2019s Film<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the recent title by prolific South Korean director Hong Sang soo, which obtained the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Festival, this year. As in a good portion of his movies, the author insists in a universe of characters linked to the world of cinema. In this case, the center of the story is the zigzagging itinerary of a writer that arrives in the city to present her book. There, and always by chance, she meets a woman and her filmmaker husband, and then an actress, with whom she incubates the idea of making a movie. Based on a changing structure, that sometimes moves back and then forward in another direction, the picture delves into one of those omnipresent topics in the director\u2019s filmography: the eternal search for a partner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another of the films present in this program is <\/span><b><i>Alcarr\u00e0s<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the new motion picture by Spanish director Carla Sim\u00f3n, who codirected the short documentary <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Correspondencia<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">together with Dominga Sotomayor, and which was part of the Opening Ceremony at FICValdivia 26, in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alcarr\u00e0s<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> describes the implications of the decline in agrarian activity in that area of L\u00e9rida provice, in Catalonia. It narrates the harvest ritual of the last peach crop at a family\u2019s plot of land, before the group leaves, and solar panels are deployed in the area. It is a small crisis, at once intimate and social, implacable and imperceptible. It is everything the director needs to unfold her picture, which gives special attention to the states of nature, and the points of view of children. It is from here that it opens to a register closer in style to anthropological documentaries, that manages to cover an entire community. The movie received the Golden Bear, at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann, FICValdivia had already screened <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dreamed Ones,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Gala section of its 23<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> edition. This picture, with its greatly original narrative device involving two actors at a film studio, stages the correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, which took place during the 1940s. This year, Beckermann returns with <\/span><b><i>Mutzenbacher<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a picture that revives a classic erotic text about a Viennese prostitute the director incorporates into her film indirectly, giving fragments of the writing to several men, for them to read and discuss. They are passages filled with eroticism, and, through a detached, divested staging, the movie analyzes the current status of masculine morals. Mutzenbacher collected the Best Picture award, in the Encounters section, at Berlin 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another reunion of sorts is the screening of the new movie by Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra \u2013 <\/span><b><i>Pacifiction <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 who had already been part of FICValdivia\u2019s Gala section with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historia de mi Muerte<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">La Muerte de Luis XIV<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. His latest picture premiered in the Official Selection at Cannes 2022. It is based on the figure of a corrupt Commissioner of the Republic, the representative of the French government in Tahiti, during the 1970s, who built a network of crossed relationships, based on seduction and fear, in midst of the atomic testing France reactivated in Polynesia. As he has done in other films, Albert Serra organizes the narrative based on the ritualistic dimension of his actors\u2019 bodies, in this case, on Benoit Magimel\u2019s exuberant work in the leading role.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Magdala<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, by Damien Manivel, premiered in the ACID section, at the recent edition of the Cannes Film Festival and, like his previous vehicle <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enfants D\u2019Isadora<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which screened in the same section at FICValdivia 26, the story is built from scraps, with an emphasis in his powerful capacity of observing gestures. The movie takes on the final moments of Mar\u00eda Magdalena (portrayed by dancer and choreographer <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elsa Wolliaston)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, who has been expelled from Christian communities, living her old age as a hermit, in the woods, feeding on wild berries and rainwater. Manivel\u2019s picture pays attention to the rhythms defined by the closeness of death, and with a staging that is almost bereft of dialogs, by lingering on the natural details, evoking the protagonist\u2019s memories and the ambiguous relationship she had with Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Fiebre<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the third feature by Chilean director <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elisa Eliash, is the last confirmed title in this section. The movie, which will celebrate its World Premiere, deals with the universe of children, based on Nino\u2019s tale, a boy that, experiencing a night of high fever, is absorbed into a painting, coming into a universe plagued with strange and fascinating images. Nino\u2019s little adventure will involve him trying to escape and return to reality; here, the director expands and prolongs what she had already announced in her previous short <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Un poco de fiebre <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(A little fever), which premiered in the Latin American Children\u2019s Short Film competition at FICValdivia 27, where she already constructed an imagery that approaches <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alice in Wonderland<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>2022 Focus<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The festival also announced the focuses devoted to Portuguese filmmaker <\/span><b>Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, to Spanish director <\/span><b>Elena L\u00f3pez Riera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and to the Mexican authors that make up <\/span><b>Colectivo Cine Mujer<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues\u2019 case, FICValdivia has programmed an almost complete retrospective that begins with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Odete<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2005), his second motion picture, and includes the recent <\/span><b><i>Fogo-F\u00e1tuo<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2022), a futuristic fable premiered in the Directors\u2019 Fortnight at Cannes, with open references to present-day Portugal, which Rodrigues packages as an erotic musical; and <\/span><b><i>Onde Fica Esta Rua? ou Sem Antes Nem Depois<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2022), a documentary he codirected with Jo\u00e3o Rui Guerra da Mata, that deals with and updates Paulo Rocha\u2019s classic <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Green Years<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1963), based on its protagonist, Isabel Ruth. The staging exacerbates the non-realistic atmosphere in the same manner the directing team employed in <\/span><b><i>A Ultima vez que vi Macau<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2012), the gorgeous film inspired in Welles\u2019 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lady from Shanhai<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which is also part of this focus, along with the shorts <\/span><b><i>Alvorada vermelha<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2011), <\/span><b><i>Manh\u00e3 de Santo Ant\u00f3nio<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2012), <\/span><b><i>O Corpo de Afonso<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2011), and the full-length pictures <\/span><b><i>Morrer como um homem<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2009) and <\/span><b><i>O Ornit\u00f3logo<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2016).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Elena L\u00f3pez Riera<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The focus on filmmaker and visual artist <\/span><b>Elena L\u00f3pez Riera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> includes her three short films \u2013 <\/span><b><i>Pueblo<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2015), <\/span><b><i>Las v\u00edsceras<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2016), and <\/span><b><i>Los que desean<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2018) \u2013 with which she initiated an anthropological observation project that delves into cultural inheritance, the relationships between the individual and the community, and the sense of connection between the new generations and their past. These elements are also present in her first feature, <\/span><b><i>El agua<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2002), where she documents the commotion in a small town in southeastern Spain, caused by a summer storm that threatens to overflow the main river. This contingency reignites in the inhabitants the belief that some women are destined to disappear with every new flood. This possibility affects three women, of different generations, whom the town predicts could be possible victims. The movie premiered last year in the Directors\u2019 Fortnight at Cannes. Elena L\u00f3pez Riera will be at FICValdivia, thanks to a collaboration with Acci\u00f3n Cultural Espa\u00f1ola.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Colectivo Cine Mujer<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The third focus to be announced is devoted to recovering the work by <\/span><b>Colectivo Cine Mujer <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Women Cinema Collective), that was established in Mexico, in 1975, by a group of women influenced by the events of May 1968, in Paris. While studying in France, Rosa Martha Fern\u00e1ndez, in light of that year\u2019s revolutionary movement, began contacting feminist activists, and, on returning to Mexico, started working as an essayist and, soon after, as a filmmaker. She would be instrumental in the collective\u2019s first stage, eventually joined by Beatriz Mira, Guadalupe S\u00e1nchez, Maricarmen de Lara, and Sonia Fritz, among others, who would collaborate in script writing, along with other creative and technical tasks. All of them will be in Valdivia, a true tribute to their <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">oeuvre<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which regrettably has remained invisible for decades. Aware of this fact, FICValdivia initiated a partnership with Filmoteca UNAM, to digitalize the original negatives of part of the production associated with Colectivo Cine Mujer, to contribute to their recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The collective began activities at a radicalized and strongly politicized moment, marked, among others, by the consequences of the Tlatelolco Student Massacre, setting its bearings on cinema that moved away from conventional denouncement formats (survey documentaries) to take on freer alternatives. That is the case with <\/span><b><i>Cosas de Mujeres<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1975-1978), by Rosa Martha Fern\u00e1ndez, which gathers women\u2019s testimonies and their abortion experiences. Later, Fern\u00e1ndez made <\/span><b><i>Rompiendo el silencio<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1979), a documentary-fiction hybrid that works as a denunciation of female rape, and beyond that, the complicity in the Mexican judicial system and the Church, along with consequent aspects of family rejection, and social vulnerability. The same year, Beatriz Mira filmed <\/span><b><i>Vicios en la cocina<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a picture that centers on domestic work, and which collected an Ariel award to the best documentary short.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The collective also delved into other formats, including animation, the contribution of graphic designer Guadalupe S\u00e1nchez, with <\/span><b><i>Y si eres mujer <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1977), about sexist education. Meanwhile, Mar\u00eda Eugenia Tam\u00e9s and Maricarmen de Lara released a medium-length film, independently, although at the same time related to Cine Mujer; <\/span><b><i>No es por gusto<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1981) takes on the reality of a group of female prostitutes in Mexico City. <\/span><b><i>Es primera vez <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1981), a collective work led by Beatriz Mira, captures the communion of over two hundred women from multiple organizations who came together, in 1980, to share experiences. These two films coincide with Rosa Martha Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s departure to Nicaragua, opening a new stage in the collective. In this new cycle, film editor Sonia Fritz made <\/span><b><i>Yalaltecas<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1984), a 27-minute short intimately linked with Por Primera Vez, insisting in the hybrid format \u2013 documentary and fiction \u2013 to tell the story of a group of women in a community in the Zapotec mountains, Yalalag, who have carried a struggle against the chiefdom in their village since the start of the decade, and have created the Yalateca Women\u2019s Union, with the aim of improving their living conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All these works, despite their historical importance and the topical contingencies they deal with, were mistreated by (the mostly male) cinematographic critics, and simultaneously removed from Latin American cinema history. In recent times, a series of writings have sought to replace their importance, especially because -regrettably- the situations these films discuss, decades later, still continue to be at the fore. We hope that, starting with this edition of FICValdivia, both the movies related to the collective, as well as the later filmographies by Rosa Martha Fern\u00e1ndez, Beatriz Mira, Maricarmen de Lara, Guadalupe S\u00e1nchez, Sonia Fritz, and their colleagues can find the diffusion and recognition they deserve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>FICValdivia is funded and organized by Universidad Austral de Chile; produced by the Valdivia Cultural Center for Film Promotion; convened by the Great City of Valdivia, the Los R\u00edos Regional Government, and Codeproval; financed by the Audiovisual Fund, the Collaborating Festivals Program of the Audiovisual Arts and Industry Council (Call 2021-2022), and the Collaborating Cultural Organizations Program of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gala is the classic section for the great films and authors, showcasing pictures that recently premiered at the top film festivals in the world. A highlight of this year is the Focus section, devoted to filmmakers that will travel to Valdivia, specifically to present their filmography: Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues, Elena L\u00f3pez Riera, and the iconic&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":10088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,19],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-10118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destacados-en","category-news","tag-destacado-en","category-108","category-19","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10120,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118\/revisions\/10120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ficvaldivia.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}