Less than a month before its official launch, the (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico reveals the big names in international experimental cinema who will be attending the event in A Coruña between June 3 and 8, with more films made by women, more live screenings and a tribute to the Super 8 format, which this year celebrates the 60th anniversary of its appearance.
The 16th edition of the Mostra features a diverse international program featuring more than 100 films from 60 filmmakers, including previously unseen retrospectives, international premieres, and performances from countries such as Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Austria, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Senegal, Uganda, Spain, and Galicia.
CARLOS CASTILLO, DANIELA CUGLIANDOLO AND SUPER 8
The emergence of the Super 8 format has played a unique role in the history of experimental cinema, fostering freedom in the early stages of today’s renowned creators. This is the case of Carlos Castillo. Born in Caracas in 1942, he is one of the most prominent figures in Venezuelan art and part of a legendary generation of Super 8 filmmakers from the Caribbean country, where he led the Caracas Super 8 Film Festival in the late 1970s, one of the world’s meccas for cinema in this format. In 1981, he brought Super 8 to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, marking a milestone in the history of this format.
For him, cinema is an artistic action, from filming to projection, in which he interacts with the live image, something we will be able to experience at (S8), in the first retrospective of his filmography in Europe, with all his works projected in their original format. With titles such as Esta película está que quema (1980), Intento de vuelo fallido (1982) o Hecho en Venezuela (1977), his works have been the subject of study for their influence on experimental cinema, and the author himself will offer a masterclass on the history of Venezuelan avant-garde cinema in Super 8 during the festival in A Coruña.
T.V.O. (1979) y Uno para todos and todo para todos…_! (1980) de Carlos Castillo
If Castillo represents the Super 8 pioneers, Argentine Daniela Cugliandolo is considered the bridge between that generation and the current generation of filmmakers who continue to use analogue.
Cugliandolo’s work, which began in 1999, marks the turn of the millennium and also the new approaches to Super 8 at a time when it seemed doomed to succumb to video. In A Coruña, she will present works such as Nosferatu 2000 (1999) y Gina (1999), in which she plays with the codes of silent cinema. She will also present more recent films closer to surrealism, such as Flama (2016) y Gaias (2021).
Daniela Cugliandolo. Las Mucamas asesinas – trilogía (2000) and Gaias (2021)
FEMALE CREATORS TAKE OVER THE FESTIVAL WITH ARTIST SUCH AS BETZY BROMBERG AND JEANETTE MÚÑOZ
Around two-thirds of the titles scheduled for this edition of (S8) are directed by women, with outstanding programs, retrospectives, premieres, works never before seen in Spain, and above it all, the presence of their authors during the screening.
We’ll welcome American Betzy Bromberg, who will review her career from her early films, featuring punk, feminism, and critique of the establishment in the 1970s New York, to her later films, which veer toward delicate work with abstraction. Over three sessions, Bromberg will review her work projected in 16mm film, including the screening in Spain for the first time of two of her feature films: a Darkness Swallowed (2005) and Glide os Transparency (2016).
Betzy Bromberg. Ciao Bella (1978) and Glide of transparency (2016)
Chilean Jeanette Múñoz, for her part, will premiere two of her new feature films in (S8), Fuente Alemana (2024) and El Cortijo (2025), dedicated to unique enclaves in Chile and beyond, reflecting on the relationship established with these places from the perspective of a migrant. Recognized as the leading woman in contemporary global avant-garde cinema, she conceives her works as an open and organic process, as will be shown with the series of her filmed letters Envíos (2005-2025) or the screening of Puchuncaví (2025), in which she incorporates a performance involving stitching and related to personal memory and the origins of cinema itself.
Jeannette Muñoz. Puchucanví (2025) and Envíos (2025)
The XVI edition of the (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico is organized by the Cultural Association eSe8 and is sponsored by the Concejalía de Cultura y Turismo del Ayuntamiento de A Coruña and the support of Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais da Xunta de Galicia (Agadic), Deputación da Coruña, Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA), Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) y Fundación Luis Seoane.
