eSe8 LAB is being launched, a project based on the extensive experience in this area garnered by the (S8) International Peripheral Film Festival of A Coruña, with its three previous projects involving education, tutoring and artistic residences, covering them all and now giving them a new lease of life.
These are: INPUT—Seminars for Tutoring and Personalised Advice on Film Projects in Development; BAICC—International Artistic Residencies for Film Creation; and PARAÍSO—Training for Fine Arts University Students. All of them are being promoted by the eSe8 Association within the context of the Mostra or festival, which over its thirteen editions has become an international gathering for significant filmmakers and professionals involved in contemporary film creation.
Through eSe8 LAB, from now on these initiatives are hosting a greater number of projects, auteurs and professionals, opening up participation to processes and developments that include co-productions with other countries and which will qualitatively and quantitatively improve their impact and their significance on the international scene.
INPUT: MORE PROJECTS PARTICIPATING AND A BIGGER CONSULTANCY TEAM
INPUT is a tutoring and personalised consultancy space for film projects in progress. It arose in 2017 from collaboration between the Luis Seoane Foundation and the (S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico festival, through which different auteurs are put in touch with internationally renowned professionals in the field of cinema and art, with whom they can discuss their projects, which may be either at the writing and development stage or already in distribution. The aim of these seminars is to foster our creators’ professionalisation, promoting training, structuring and networking within our country’s cultural sector.
Fifteen projects have benefited from these past five editions. They were selected in open tenders, a process that has opened doors to new success stories such as being included in professional development spaces, obtaining funds, awards and premieres at international festivals.
SOS, by Nico Fernández Millan; RESERVA, Gerard Ortin; REUNIÓN, Ilán Serruya; EL MÉDICO CURA, by Maider Fernández Iriarte; CANDO TODO UN ANIMAL, by Ángel Filgueira; NESE MOMENTO O AMOR FOI ESCURO E SÓ PUIDEN CHORAR, by Aldara Pagán; and POSSIBLE FILM, by Luis Lechosa, are just a few examples.
As a result of the launch of eSe8 LAB, more filmmakers will be able to benefit from INPUT, increasing projects being carried out that will be selected through an open tender, as well as the number of professionals in the programming, distribution and film production that will be advising them.
BAICC—THE ONLY INTERNATIONAL ARTISTIC RESIDENCES IN CINEMATOGRAPHIC CREATION IN SPAIN
The BAICC International Artistic Residences for Cinematographic Creation are the only international residences of these characteristics in Spain today. They were launched in 2017, promoted by (S8), Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT).
The results of the residency, in which an audiovisual piece is produced that is shot in analogue format (16 mm, 8 mm or Super 8), are premiered every year in (S8), thus giving their creators the chance to present their work before the general public and the international professionals attending the Mostra festival, and to interact with them. (S8) therefore generates its own content by hosting the work on the project itself, giving it financial backing and programming the pieces resulting from these residences. At the same time, it encourages and supports new talents, both financially and in their future career path, giving them credit as part of the festival’s programme watched by hundreds of entities, events and professionals from all over the world every year.
In this edition, the filmmaker Álvaro Feldman was selected and awarded to carry out his project Torontontero, from among 14 projects submitted to the public call launched last June. In the project, Feldman seeks to develop a device (installation and performance)—not just a film, but a work with many ways of existing that breaks with the temporal linearity of cinema. In order to do so, he set out to manufacture a mechanism that makes it possible to project in both directions, as well as exploring the possibilities of optical printing to achieve a diversity of structures.
With these structures, Feldman is constructing a film shot in Canada and Spain that is as reversible as possible, so that it can be seen in both directions simultaneously, forwards and backwards.
NEW GRANTS IN COLLABORATION WITH THE BALTIC ANALOG LAB IN RIGA, LATVIA
In order to bolster our educational activity and foster the creation and development of emerging talent, the eSe8 LAB isextending these residences to Europe. It was with this intention that the collaboration with the BALTIC ANALOG LAB of RIGA arose. The BAL is a collective of artists and a film lab based in Riga, Latvia, which aims to produce, teach and inspire an audience by providing a space for creation, learning and teaching.
These new residences in Spain and Latvia, which will result in new international co-productions, are already underway. They were inaugurated by the filmmakers Helena Estrela (with her project Hot sun, late light) and María Pipla (with her project As time bends). Feldman, Estrela and Pipla were all in the programme of the last (S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico da Coruña festival, and they will be in it again in 2023, when they will premiere their latest pieces worldwide within the festival.
“PARAÍSO” REACHES OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
In 2021, (S8) opened up a new space for teaching and new creation from the perspective of artistic training, focusing on the multidisciplinary, free approach of Fine Arts: “Paraíso” (“Paradise”). This is an alliance with the university set up with the idea of indicating and blazing new trails in the future of the moving image. The next Mostra will include new faculties of Fine Arts and Art Schools from Europe in addition to those from Salamanca and Pontevedra, which have participated in past festivals.
They will all be part of an international meeting of students and international professionals from the sector and from the sphere of teaching, in order to talk about how art and the moving image is being taught and the challenges for the future. Furthermore, the festival will be extending the sessions open to the public with works created by students as part of the (S8) programme, as in recent years. It should be noted that thanks to eSe8 LAB, “Paraíso” will include personalised tutorial sessions starting in 2023. The Mostra is intended to serve as a space for initiation as an introduction to the sphere of cinema, and to provide students with a space for creation and freedom.
eSe8 LAB is funded by the ICAA, General Directorate of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts. Funded by the European Union—Next Generation and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
