Today we’ll be presenting, within the framework of our on-site activities, our Sinais en curto selection: a handful of innovative, stimulating films by Galician artists. To celebrate (S8)’s 12th edition, we have proposed a sort of “Secret Friend” game to our guest authors: Alberto Gracia, Sol Mussa, Xacio Baño, Marta Valverde, and Eloy Domínguez Serén –each one of them were invited to write a few lines à propos the featured film of one fellow selected artist.
Alberto Gracia writes about
RATATOUILLE by Sol Mussa
A warehouse shown from the perspective of an animal –we can imagine a party-animal Roomba that, emancipated from its software, gets around freely. Lurking at night, it finds shelter among the waste material of a restaurant. There, it finds food and enjoyment. During daytime, it transforms. Renewing its engagement with survival, it cleans its knives, and behaves as a good friend and co-worker.
A gaze from the trash calls for our attention: maybe it’s not about looking at the trash from our point of view. Maybe it’s about looking at ourselves and others from the point of view of trash.
What lies at the backstage of the consumerist spectacle? Beauty and love. And friendship. Where there’s trash, there are rats ready to find what they’re looking for, because they are survivors, and they have plenty of talent.
Sol Mussa writes about
AUGAS ABISAIS by Xacio Baño
I met Xacio (in real life) only recently. I was amazed by his cool, peaceful presence. Regarding his working processes, he told me he saw himself as “a solitary guy”, and I recognized all this when I saw Augas Abisais. I’ve always been afraid of the ocean depths, but when I dived into this story… Splash! I found a very stimulating narrative piece with a background tension that captivated me. What I liked the most was the trope of the angler fish –it struck me as an extremely potent visual metaphor. It sent shivers down my spine!
Xacio Baño writes about
OS CORPOS by Eloy Domínguez Serén
1-2-3, 1-2-3. The ternary rhythm of Manzaneda’s fulión still resonates in my chest, along with the image of the round blood stains on the skin of the bass drums, left by the players’ shattered knuckles. Os corpos took me back to those times. In Ourense, the carnival is about bodies and skin. The film makes you shake. It puts you in a trance state, and you shake as if dozens of men and women were pushing you. Beautifully shot, and with an exquisite sound production, Os corpos is one of those films that makes you understand the relevance of rituals, and their magnetism. 1-2-3, 1-2-3.
Eloy Domínguez Serén writes about
BLANCO Y FUCSIA by Marta Valverde
Marta Valverde is a maverick, subversive creator in a constant process of exploration and transformation. Her work is stimulatingly heterodox and heterogeneous. Her pieces, built on beautiful visions of intimacy, rebel against form and the traditional logic of narrative and visual languages. Getting to know, through Marta’s unique gaze, her friends, her grandmother, and her loquacious father (such a cool man!) is just delightful. Marta explores all the resources of the audiovisual world, from super 8 to split screens shots, WhatsApp audio notes… and creates an allegorical, tender tale about the uncertainties of a generation in a state of trance.
Marta Valverde writes about
TENGAN CUIDADO AHÍ FUERA by Alberto Gracia
There’s no moon tonight. A greenish light bathes a couple of cars dancing, mating in destruction. DESTROY/BE CAREFUL. Past, present, and future in an amorphous mass of speed and violence pervaded with testosterone. There’s no hope. The only possibility is to live in exile. LET’S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE.
