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 Documenta Madrid
May 4-13, 2007, Madrid, Spain |
The 4th International Documentary Film Festival of Madrid will be held from May 4 through 13
DOCUMENTA MADRID 07 strengthens into an unmissable event for lovers of documentary film
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THE WAR TAPES / LAS CINTAS DE LA GUERRA
DEBORAH SCRANTON / 97´ / 2006 / USA |
The festival has received a larger number of films - a total of 900 - from more nationalities than in previous years. DOCUMENTA MADRID 07 shows the incursions into the genre by specific Spanish fiction directors such as Fernando León, Iciar Bollaín and Isabel Coixet. The retrospective of the complete documentary work by ULRICH SEIDL shows the self-destruction of the modern human being through a unique lens.
MICHAEL MOORE AND CONTEMPORARIES II: second part of a blow to the American dream from North American documentary makers, from the late 90s to the present day.
DOCUMENTA WINE reveals the secrets of wine-making and guides the spectator on a tour of the birthplaces of wine culture.
Madrid, March 23, 2007
The Arts Department of the city of Madrid is organizing the 4th annual International Festival of Documentary Film DOCUMENTA MADRID 07, which will be held from May 4 through 13. The success it has had with audiences (with more than 12,500 spectators in its third year) and the growing number of films received (900 films compared with 714 last year) has made this competition the leading film festival of Madrid.
In line with this growth in public and films submitted, which this year come from more different countries than in past festivals, 37 total, the festival will award a greater amount in prize winnings: 70,000 Euros, which is 6,000 more than last year's festival.
After the celebrated tribute to Joaquín Jordá, DOCUMENTA 2007 will explore the incursions made into the documentary genre by some of the biggest award-winning Spanish fiction filmmakers. In addition, as part of the multiple activities throughout its fourteen venues, DOCUMENTA 2007 will invite the spectator to delve into the culture of wine, to enjoy the second part in the work by Michael Moore's contemporaries in North American documentary filmmaking, as well as a fascinating retrospective on the complete documentary work by the Austrian Ulrich Seidl.
DOCUMENTA 2007's calling is to disseminate a selection of international films that are a faithful reflection of social, cultural, economic, artistic, and environmental realities in the world, and to show the documentary filmmaker's commitment to exploring the secrets of the audiovisual language.
The most intimate desire of the competition's organizers is to open windows into other realities in order to make the spectators think about problems they had not considered before, and to the extent possible, to motivate them to act in order to try and find solutions. In addition, it has become an annual meeting point for professionals, audiovisual creators, and audiences eager for new offerings in the genre.
101 documentaries selected out of 900
The program for DOCUMENTA MADRID is divided into 3 main blocks: National Competitive Sections, Informative Sections, and Parallel Activities.
There are four Official Competitive Sections:
Original Documentary Section: here films demonstrating originality and innovation in terms of both form as well as subject matter. It is divided into the categories full-length films and short films.
Competition of Documentary Reporting: documentary films made for film or television whose subject matter includes some fact of informational interest.
National Competition: a section created at last year's festival for the purpose of highlighting Spanish film to a greater extent. This year and for the first time, it is divided into the categories short films and full-length films.
Avid Xpressate/HP Marathon: meant for the filmmakers of the films selected in any of the three competitive sections. This is a two day marathon in which the directors will have at their disposal a thirty minute tape and will be given a theme with which they will have to make a short film. Afterwards, they will have one day to use the equipment and personnel support from Avid to edit the film. The short films will then be screened at one of the different competition venues.
DOCUMENTA MADRID continues it strong commitment to the Official Section. Among the 900 films received this year (186 more than last year), 101 have been selected and will participate in different categories: 56 in the Original Documentary Section (18 full-length films and 38 short films); 25 in the Documentary Reporting Section and 20 in the National Competition (8 full-length films and 12 short films).
Also outstanding has been increasing international prestige enjoyed by DOCUMENTA MADRID, which is only in its fourth year and will have films from more than 37 nationalities and the five continents, the most represented of which are Spain and Europe (Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, the Netherlands... etc.) North America and Latin America (Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru... etc) as well as others (Singapore, East Timor, South Africa,... etc.).
Documentary Makers in Recent Spanish Film
After the success of the tribute to Joaquín Jordá at the third festival, this year DOCUMENTA MADRID will explore the incursions into the documentary genre by specific Spanish directors from the field of fiction film. The series 'Documentary Makers in Recent Spanish Film' will show the most important films from this field by Fernando León de Aranoa (Caminantes), Benito Zambrano (Los que se quedaron), Isabel Coixet (Viaje al Corazón de la Tortura), David Trueba (La Silla de Fernando), Manuel Martín Cuenca (El Juego de Cuba), Julio Medem (La Pelota Vasca), Achero Mañas (Blackwhite Donde los Polos se Tocan), Gracia Querejeta (Primarias) and Chus Gutiérrez (Sexo Oral).
In addition, there will be a screening of Invisibles (2007), a collective project produced by Javier Bardem, with several segments directed by Isabel Coixet, Mariano Barroso, Fernando León de Aranoa, Javier Corcuera and Wim Wenders, who pays tribute to the role of 'Doctors Without Borders' in the forgotten conflicts in Third World countries.
Michael Moore and Contemporaries II: more scathing American documentaries
In continuation of the screenings begun last year, this series includes films from the late 90s through to the present day, films that have become paradigms for documentaries being produced today in the USA. Filmmakers such as Ross McElwee and Errol Morris will be represented once again with their more recent work, which has never before been seen in commercial cinemas in Spain. Some of the most notable films include the Oscar award-winning The Fog of War (Morris, 2003), which analyzes the former US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara; the vision of the horrors of the Vietnam war through the testimony of the soldiers' widows, Regret to Inform (Barbara Sonneborn, 1998), which won awards at Sundance, Valladolid, and was nominated for an Oscar; and Control Room, a perspective on the coverage of the Iraq War from the TV channel Al-Jazeera (Jehane Noujaim, 2004), which puts a twist on the vision of the conflict given by CNN.
Ulrich Seidl Retrospective
DOCUMENTA 07 is dedicating a compete retrospective to the work of the Austrian Ulrich Seidl, a unique chronicler of the decline of present day society (especially that of his home country), documentary and artistic work that he began in the 90s. Since then, films such as Animal Love (1995), Jesus, You Know (2003) and The Last Real Men (1994) openly show the self-destructive processes that lead to desperation, losses, madness, isolation, disappointments, taboos, and angst in contemporary humankind.
Documenta Wine
 Winemaking culture today is gaining every day in its number of followers and it has turned the study of wine culture into a way of life. DOCUMENTA MADRID 07 will take the spectators to the places where wine is made and will guide them with formulas for enjoying and combining it, according to professionals from other countries.
The screenings will be accompanied by expert presentations and as a bonus, they will include wine-tasting courses, which will act as an introduction into sensory pleasures enjoyed when tasting a good glass of wine.
Cinematic experiences such as Bere per dimenticare (2005), by the Italian director Michele Calabresi (who shows how it's possible to buy wines in Italy with labels bearing images of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and other dictators); the vision of the globalization of the wine industry, Mondovino (2004) by Jonathan Nossiter; and The Celebrity Guide to Wine by Daniel Helfgott, where Whoopie Goldberg and Steven Segal and other film stars give advice on how to choose a good wine; these are only some of the more appetizing films that can be tasted by the public at DOCUMENTA MADRID
Ducumenta Madrid
www.documentamadrid.com |
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