- This year’s edition will be closed on October 3 with a moving film performance by Miwa Matreyek that will be projected on a number of selected walls in different locations of the city.
- Renewing its engagement with the promotion of film literacy, (S8) will offer a workshop program on the creative potential of analog filmmaking with super 8 and 16mm film, conducted by the Australian creators Richard Tuohy and Dianna Barrie. These activities will be complemented with a panel devoted to discussing the current situation of experimental short film in Spain, with the participation of delegates of ICAA, AGADIC, and the national agency for the coordination of Spanish short films.
(S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico’s 11º edition was officially presented this morning during a press conference at A Coruña’s Domus. The event brought together relevant representatives of regional institutions, among which were Inés Rey, mayor of A Coruña; Dolores Meijomín, coordinator of audiovisual policies at AGADIC (the Galician agency for the cultural industries), and (S8)’s director Ángel Rueda.
The festival’s organization has revealed the remaining contents of their program for this year’s dual edition that will be held from September 27 to October 3. Previously confirmed sections such as Camera Obscura, Secret Gardens, Sinais, Xerme, and Sinais en curto will be complemented with Desbordamientos –a section whose title intends to pay tribute to José Val del Omar, one of the main references of the festival–, which will include a triple on-site session featuring screenings of pieces by Valentina Alvarado and Carlos Vásquez, a live performance by Portuguese artist Tânia Dinis, and an outdoors session in the company of American creator Miwa Matreyek, who will be in charge of closing the festival with a spectacular film performance that will be projected on several walls at selected locations of the city. All these sessions will be available on streaming, and will be accessible from every corner of the world.
Back in 2014, (S8) celebrated an edition devoted to Japan and its film scene. Among the guest artists of that year, the festival had the pleasure to collaborate with Teruo Koike, a filmmaker and visual artist based in Kobe. The artist’s interest in music is present in his installation Cancer Treatment Diary, which will be hosted at the Afundación building in A Coruña. Koike coped with the disease by creating a musical piece in several acts that he periodically released through his social media accounts –Cancer Treatment Diary is a multilayer piece that the author built recording himself playing a tune, then recording himself again and adding the new footage to the previous one (plus the new sound layer) and repeating this process using different instruments, his voice, and recycled sonorous objects created and manipulated by himself.
In addition to this, this year’s dual edition of (S8) comprises a program of activities focusing on the film industry –their section Observatory will include several panels on the current situation of the sector: a panel organized in collaboration with CREA (the Galician association of professional filmmakers) with the participation of several representatives of ICAA (the Spanish institute for cinematography and the visual arts), AGADIC (the Galician agency for the cultural industries), and the national agency for the coordination of Spanish short films; and a second panel organized with the support of Proxecta (the Galician agency for the coordination of film festivals), dedicated to discussing the recent creation of Pantalla, a national federation of film festival and audiovisual content coordination agencies.
For another year, (S8) renews its engagement with INPUT, a platform that offers monitoring, tutoring, and a meeting point for emerging film creators currently developing a work in progress. This year, Adrián Canoura, Aldara Pagán, and Ángel Filgueira are the selected authors that have been granted the opportunity to share and discuss their unfinished works with three prestigious professionals from the fields of art and cinema, who will monitor their progress from the writing to the development and distribution of their projects. INPUT’s 2020 advisory team will bring together Alejandra Trelles (Cinemateca Uruguaya, Uruguay), Rocío Mesa (L.A. OLA Spanish Contemporary Cinema Showcase, US), and the artist, researcher, and Professor Esperanza Collado (Spain).
As a complementary initiative, the festival will announce the open call for artist’s proposals for the artist-in-residence program BAICC 2021 that (S8)’s organizes in collaboration with the Spanish agency for cultural initiatives AC/E and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT). (S8)’s educational section will also include an online program of workshops on the techniques and possibilities of analogue filmmaking facilitated by the well-renowned Australian film creators Richard Tuohy and Dianna Barrie.
Valentina Alvarado, Carlos Vásquez, and Tânia Dinis – protagonists of the section Desbordamientos
In an on-site event, (S8)’s Desbordamientos will offer the audience the opportunity to delve into the work of Valentina Alvarado and Carlos Vásquez in a triple session that will include a selection of films that each one of them directed plus a collaborative performance they created as a team –this expanded cinema project called Panacronismos, which will also be available on streaming, is an invitation to examine the notion of civilization from the perspective of the binary opposition between nature and culture.
Selected works by Valentina Alvarado include the world premiere of Propiedades de una esfera paralela, a piece created in the context of BAICC artist-in-residence program (a collaborative initiative of (S8), AC/E, and LIFT) at the LIFT facilities in Toronto. Carlos Vásquez is a Chilean creator based in Barcelona who has explored the fields of film, photography, and sound with his art. His films transit, without boundaries, the realms of both documentary cinema and experimental cinema, both in 16mm and super 8.
Tânia Dinis’ work focuses on memory –one’s own memory and that of others, and how they interact both in the real and the fictional world. This on-site session will include a screening of a selection of her films, complemented by an adaptation of her research project/performance Álbuns da terra. This live performance, which will also be available online, was developed using family albums collected by the artist –albums as objects inside which are kept the stories and memories of a family.
This year (S8) is part of Momentos Alhambra thanks to their brand new collaboration with Cervezas Alhambra –a symbol of a shared passion for discovering authentic creations made to be enjoyed with all your senses. Participants in Desbordamientos on-site sessions will be invited to accompany their experience with Alhambra beer. This new partnership is the result of Alhambra’s commitment to promoting cultural initiatives, inviting audiences to enjoy their beers while they appreciate quality art proposals. The purpose? To create unique experiences.
A spectacular closing event by Miwa Matreyek – a film performance screened on the city
Miwa Matreyek visited (S8) in 2012 and mesmerized the audience with her live performances, choreographies during which she manipulated a rear projection of her shadow to make it interact in real time with carefully selected elements, such as animations and shadows of objects. Now, in 2020, she returns to A Coruña to close this year’s edition with her latest creation, Infinitely Yours, where the American artist explores the environmental crisis our planet is facing. In this moving, spectacular performance that will be projected on a number of selected walls in different locations of the city, Matreyek portrays a compelling allegoric story of the human actions that led us to collapse, with special attention the colossal dimensions of its consequences (oceans invaded by plastic, mountains of waste material resulting from irresponsible consumption) that still leaves a door open for hope.
Specialized workshops with Richard Tuohy and Dianna Barrie to learn proficient techniques of analogue filmmaking
(S8)’s training section this year includes an online workshop on the techniques and possibilities of analogue filmmaking, which will be conducted by the Australian artists Richard Tuohy and Dianna Barrie, co-founders of the artist-run film lab Nanolab and internationally respected referents that have been key in the evolution of analog experimental cinema.
Until it will be possible to show their works in the only acceptable way (that is, with the warmth that only a 16mm projector can provide), (S8) will be offering a workshop in five sessions conducted by Barrie and Tuohy. Their goal? To show that it is possible to become a MacGyver of photochemical cinema and build your own camera with a piece of tin, a pen, and a pair of scissors, and a super 8 cartridge. A workshop addressed to anyone working –or interested in working – with super 8 and/or 16 mm.
The Observatory – casting light on the current situation of short film
In this dual edition, (S8)’s Observatory –an initiative developed in collaboration with CREA, the Galician association of professional filmmakers– will host a sectoral meeting that will bring together a number of professionals from the Spanish film scene to discuss the current status of short film, as well as the different stages involved in its creation, from production and distribution to its international promotion.
This program will be divided in two sessions. The first one includes a panel that will bring together a number of relevant speakers, such as Beatriz Navas, director of ICAA (the Spanish institute for cinematography and the visual arts) and Tito Rodríguez, director of marketing strategies at ICAA, who will give a talk on current options for subsidies for the development and distribution of experimental films. Their intervention will be followed by presentations by Dolores Meijomín, coordinator of audiovisual policies at AGADIC (the Galician agency for the cultural industries), who will speak about their initiative Shorts from Galicia, and film programmer Jorge Rivero, who has been a fundamental agent in the promotion and dissemination of short films in Spain and will present the new official guidelines issued by the Coordinadora del Cortometraje Español (the Spanish organization for the coordination of Spanish short films).
The second session will open with a presentation on Proxecta Constrúe, an initiative by the film festival management agency Galicia Proxecta. Their representative Manolo González will speak about the current situation of short film in relation with the activities carried out in the context of their project Chanfaina Lab. The panel will close with an intervention by Marta Lladó, managing director of the association Catalunya Film Festivals, and a talk by Ana Domínguez, director of (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico, who will speak about the role of their organizations in the promotion of the recently founded Pantalla –a national federation of film festival and audiovisual content coordination agencies.
Last, but not least…
- Sections: Flower of the Day, Secret Gardens, and the special program The Secret Garden | Featuring pieces by: Julieta Averbuj, Janie Geiser, Julie Murray, Erica Sheu, Shiloh Cinquemani, Jodie Mack, Claudio Caldini, Milena Gierke, Rose Lowder, Margaret Tait, Jayne Parker, Stan Brakhage, Nathaniel Dorsky, Julie Murray, Phil Solomon, Jeannette Muñoz, Bruce Baillie.
- More than 30 years of Galcian audiovisual creation in this year’s dual edition | Featuring: Antón Reixa, Antonio Segade, Jordi Costa, Adrián Canoura, Alberte Pagán, Lara and Noa Castro, Tono Mejuto, Area Erina, Aldara Pagán.
- Camera Obscura, a new online space devoted to experimental cinema that takes over from the cult show Screening Room | Guest filmmakers: Amy Halpern, Tomonari Nishikawa, Alexandre Larose, Valentina Alvarado, and Ed Halter (in the special episode Luther Price in memoriam).
- Screenings of more than 80 pieces.
- (S8)’s most international edition – all online contents will be available in Galician, Spanish, and English.
- A selection of films from more than 10 countries (Taiwan, Germany, France, UK, USA, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Chile, Portugal…).
The 11º edition of (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico is an initiative of the association eSe8 developed with the support of local and national institutions that include Concello da Coruña, Deputación da Coruña, Xunta de Galicia, and ICAA (the Spanish institute for cinematography and the visual arts). The participation of Alejandra Trelles (Cinemateca Uruguaya, Uruguay); Rocío Mesa (L.A. OLA Spanish Contemporary Cinema Showcase, USA) and Tânia Dinis (freelance programmer, Portugal) in this edition has been possible thanks to the support of AC/E’s program for the internationalization of Spanish culture (PICE) and its initiative Visitantes, devoted to encouraging Spanish organizations and institutions for the promotion of culture to invite international professionals to participate in national activities held in Spain with the aim to disseminate, in a direct way and person-to-person, our country’s creative and cultural offer.
