FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE GIJร N 01 AGOSTO 2012 // nยบ 1
ORGANIZA
PATROCINA
COLABORA
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01 AUGUST 2012 // No 1
¿CÓMO SERÁ LA 50 EDICIÓN?
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By : JESÚS PALACIOS
On the new French cinema of cruelty The 50th edition of the Gijon International Film Festival, in the Mutant Genres section, turns its attention to the “new French cinema of cruelty”, one of the most interesting and controversial trends in cinema in the last few years. This trend has shaken fantasy and horror movies and taken them to their riskiest and most innovative extremes. Frontiere(s) (2007).
Films in the Season
À l´intérieur (2007).
or most of its history, French cinema – which is both much more and much less than what most people imagine when they hear the words “French cinema” – has stood back from horror movies. Surrealism, sci-fi, thriller, fantastique…these genres are fine, but horror in the strictest sense of the term, and even more so if it’s bloody, explicit and violent, is not. At least not often. The few scattered examples are hidden in the underbelly of mainstream cinema, even when they have a subtle and refined spirit, as in the films of Jean Rollin. Either that or they have been pulled apart by critics, capable of destroying anyone, as occurred with Franju’s seminal work of genius, Eyes without a face (1960).
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The homeland of the Marquis de Sade, of the perverse decadence of Villiers, Mirbeau or Huysmans, of Dumas, Feval, Sué and their over-the-top newspaper serials, of bloodthirsty Fântomas or Chéri-Bibi, of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Breton’s black humor and, above all, the outrageous Théâtre du Grand Guignol, the true precedent of gore, has ironically never (or hardly ever) pointed its movie cameras to the horror of tortured blood and flesh. This reserve has occasionally being interrupted by influential, isolated figures, usually linked to ‘cinema d’auteur’ – Ferreri, Girod, Zulawski, etc. – rather than to popular and genre movies. In this new millennium things have changed. An abyssal attraction for gore and American horror already lurked in the insurgent wave of new French film
One of the most interesting and controversial trends in cinema in the last few years
makers in the 80’s and 90’s, encouraged by the unexpected example set by Luc Besson, mainstream cinema wizard and auteur at the same time. There were also lessons to be learnt on graphic cinema from the films that opened Pandora’s box in the 60’s and 70’s, without losing their sense of humour and a clear – or rather, dark – political and social consciousness. Robak, Kounen, Ozon, Gans, Delplanque, Noé and others darkly understood that the now classic modern American splatter offered a powerful creative arsenal, capable of turning the slightly bourgeois French movie industry, cradled by international and authorial fame, upside down. That is how, albeit preceded by some previous examples of illustrated horror, the Bloody Revolution came to be. This is what we now refer to as the “new French cruelty cinema”: a brutal and subtle combination of themes, icons and archetypes of the classic American splatter – psychokillers, zombies, rural horror, teenagers, creative deaths, satanism – and of the European bloody horror of the 60’s and 70’s – particularly the Italian giallo –, all filtered through the Bastille of French tradition itself, that of sadism, fantastique, black humour, and the philosophy of evil and the grotesque. The first stroke inevitably came from Luc Besson, acting as the producer of High Tension (Haute tension, 2003) by Alexandre Aja. Then the actual bloodbath started: The Pharmacist (Le pharmacien de garde. Jean Veber, 2003), the Belgian The Ordeal (Calvaire. Fabrice du Welz, 2004), Sheitan (Kim Chapiron, 2006), À l´intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, 2007), Frontière(s) (Xavier Gens, 2007), Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008), The horde (La horde. Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher, 2009),… Then came others, often bending and breaking the genre boundaries and raising today’s French horror movies to peaks of quality, excellence and distinction worthy of envy... but also to extreme heights of
visual violence, graphic portrayal of pain and cruelty that are sometimes hard to bear. And all of these films characterised by an unmistakably French sort of ideological, political, moral, social and even philosophical depth. Nowadays the “new French cruelty cinema” is not so new, and neither are the Spanish “Filmax style” horror movies the French so admire and whose example they followed in their own way. It seems to be running out of steam, and some unfortunate attempts to export its creators to the heart of a Hollywood, which has little or nothing to do with the originals of Romero, Hooper, Carpenter, Craven and other idols of the French movie makers, indicate that their peculiar way of creating bloody horror is non-transferable. The “new French cruelty cinema” is based upon templates imported from Hollywood, but the final product is clearly intrinsically French. Just like the polar compared with American noir films. All we can do now is wait … well, not only wait but analyze, revisit, and even dissect what is now clearly a unique historical moment, not only in the history of horror films or French cinema, but in cinema itself. Looking through eyes without a face, like martyrs confronted with new boundaries of sensibility, at what this new cruelty cinema, rooted in old traditions just as extreme, dares to set in front of us with the explicit power of an expressionistic brushstroke of red blood and meat, splashing the apparently white canvas of our everyday life, which is itself more and more cruel with each passing day.
High tension (Haute tension)
Inside (À l´intérieur)
Frontière(s)
Martyrs
France, 2003. 91 m. Color.
France, 2007. 82 m. Color.
France, 2007. 108 m. Color.
France, 2008. 99 m. Color.
Directed by Alexandre Aja. With Cécile De France, Maïwenn, Philippe Nahon.
Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury. With Béatrice Dalle, Alysson Paradis, Natalie Roussel.
Directed by Xavier Gens. With Karina Testa, Aurélien Wiik, Patrick Ligardes.
Directed by Pascal Laugier. With Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin.
It was the first in the strictest sense of the word. A distressing and shoc-
Clear proof that the true origin – or at least a good deal of it – of the “new French
Frontière(s) was released the same year as À l´intérieur, and it also reflects the
There is a point at which any revolution reaches its peak, its full height… In the
king combination of slasher and thriller, with a hint of giallo, a touch
cruelty cinema” is to be found in the Théâtre du Grand Guignol can be found in
violent street revolts in the neighbourhoods and outskirts of Paris. Frontière(s),
new French cruelty cinema that honour might go to Martyrs, a sophisticated, wild,
of sensual eroticism and a final turn to hell worthy of the novels by
this film, a bloody thriller which takes place indoors. This is a splatter for camera,
adapts the classic rural survival genre of the American splatter – (Deliverance.
stylish, icy, sensual, brutal and tragic modern horror movie which is rooted in the
Boileau and Narcejac (grandparents of the genre). The film was first
two women and some bloodied corpses, as brutal as it is effective and shocking,
John Boorman, 1972), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe Hooper, 1974, etc.
classics of the genre, but later cleverly intertwines these in a twisted plot that
released in genre festivals and after that in movie theatres thanks
and its minimalism makes the most of every corner of a single, claustrophobic
– to deepest (or not quite so deep) France. The plot has an explicit political twist
in the end takes both the main character and the viewer to a territory of purely
to the strength of Europacorp, the company created by Luc Bes-
and distressing set. Just as in High Tension and some other examples of the
that at some points delivers a politically correct tone… but at others does the
cerebral horror, almost meta-physical, based on its extreme carnal physicality. The
son. Its release surprised the genre fans and caught more than one
new French cruelty cinema, the main action is carried out by female characters.
exact opposite and brutally delights in the aesthetics of nazi´xploitation, and
sickening plot subtly quotes from several movies, from Eyes without a Face, and
critic and viewer by surprise. It showed that a new way to make
These characters are barely accommodating, if at all, and they play with the genre
takes it to its bloodiest extremes, almost to the point of parody. Xavier Gens’
Rosemary´s Baby (Polanski, 1968) to Craven and the early Cronenberg. Martyrs
horror movies had been born, and that it was brutal and clearly and
clichés – from psychokiller to survival – in order to give them an unexpected twist.
film clearly lays bare the political and social subtext that modern 70’s American
nonetheless proves to be emphatically French in its capacity to combine scenes
distinctively French. Aja later shot a couple of effective American
It is worth mentioning the role that motherhood plays in the new French horror
horror, in the hands of such liberals as Romero, Craven, Carpenter or Hooper,
of extreme pain and suffering with postmodern irony and philosophical comment.
remakes of some of the genre classics: The Hills Have Eyes, 2006
movies – see also Baby Blood (Alain Robak, 1990), House of Voices (Saint Ange.
only hinted at. The onlooker is forced to admit not only the cathartic potential
Martyrs uses suspense as a trick to trap us in a final discourse closer to Sade
and Piranha, 2010, as well as the not so accomplished Mirrors,
Pascal Laugier, 2004), Vinyan (Fabrice du Welz, 2008), The Horde, and also Livide
of the genre but also its critical function. In spite of this, the overly obvious
than to sadism, colored with esoterism and dark philosophy. The ghosts of Sade,
2008, a remake of the Korean Geoul sokeuro (Sung-ho kim,)
(Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, 2011) – as well as the clear central role of
aspiration to become a social parable may go against the end result, as is the
Nietzsche, Bataille, Artaud and Foucault dance like Chinese shadows against a
women. And Béatrice Dalle is much scarier than Freddy Krueger.
case in the interesting but failed survival science fiction fable which Gens shot
traditional background of bloody horror movies, almost like classic B movies. This
later, The Divide (2011).
film is a jewel that shines alone, yet which at the same time shows the main
2003. Originality being one of the strong points of High Tension, one can’t help but wonder why the industry seems to have confined its director to remakes.
virtues and features of the so called “new French cruelty cinema” in their purest form. More French and crueler than ever.
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ACTOS DEL CINCUENTENARIO Teatro Jovellanos de Gijón Martes 7 de agosto • 20:30 h
CONCIERTO
Patio Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto Martes 7 de agosto • 13:30 h *
ENCUENTRO CON PÚBLICO
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Bosnian people from the “cultural underground”. Some of the members of this movement - Nele Karajlic among them - created the “Surreal Top Ten”, a TV sketch show which became a sort of Balkan version of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Its authors used absurdity and black humor in their politically subversive and visionary television sketches, which predicted the fall of Yugoslavia.
* Horario sujeto a cambios por motivos ajenos a la organización. Consulta nuestra página web.
La música de Emir Kusturica y su No Smoking Orchestra sonará este verano en Gijón. El cineasta serbio dará un concierto con su grupo en el Teatro Jovellanos el próximo 7 de agosto, dentro de los actos del Cincuentenario del FICX, además de mantener un encuentro con el público. En estas páginas, recorremos sus acordes y fotogramas.
By : Ana Otasevic
Kusturica’s Flying Circus
Underground (1995).
Corresponsal en París del periódico serbio Politika
Traducción : Diego García Cruz
Today’s circus-like performances of the No Smoking Orchestra, with hidden political messages, echo the spirit of the New Primitives. “Wake up from your boring dream! ”, calls Nele Karajlic in “Unza, unza time”, denouncing the public ignorance in Western countries during the bombardment of Yugoslavia by the NATO forces, back in 1999, when “people destroyed the difference between crime and punishment”.
El rock se combina con la música tradicional de los Balcanes en los temas de la No Smoking Orchestra. La energía de sus canciones ha conquistado el mundo y ahora el grupo de Emir Kusturica aterriza en Gijón.
“I ‘m big in Buenos Aires”, Emir Kusturica told me in Paris last April, when I met him on the set of Au bonheur des ogres, a film directed by Nicolas Bary in which he plays one of the roles together with Bérénice Bejo, the new star of French cinema.
when he received his second Palm d’Or at the Cannes film festival. No Smoking Orchestra have the on-stage energy of a punk band, mostly thanks to the personality and style of their charismatic singer, Nele Karajlic.
But the famous Serbian director wasn’t talking about his films but rather about his band, the No Smoking Orchestra, in which he plays the guitar. A short glance at their touring plan for this year is enough to realise that creating another film is not Kusturica’s priority at the moment. Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Switzerland, Ukraine, Spain, France, Canada… he is touring the globe with his band.Kusturica is not the only director who has a band. Woody Allen plays the clarinet in a small jazz orchestra, Almodovar was once in a glam punk band, and Jim Jarmusch is a musician too. But no other film director can fill concert halls from Kiev to Montevideo with such an ecstatic audience. It wasn’t a coincidence that Kusturica quoted The Sex Pistols frontman, Sid Vicious,
Punk music was one of the earliest influences on the group of neighborhood friends who used to gather together and practice music in the cellar of Nele Karajlic’s appartment in Sarajevo in the ‘70s. At the time the group was called “Zabranjeno pusenje”, which literally means “No smoking”, in Serbo-Croatian. They soon became one of the most famous Yugoslavian rock bands. Kusturica would occasionally play the bass guitar with them.
Life Is A Miracle (2004).
La música del grupo es un elemento clave de las películas de Kusturica, y el cine sirve como fuente de inspiración para sus actuaciones en directo
The band was closely associated with an urban subcultural movement called The New Primitivism, which originated in Sarajevo in the early-to-mid 1980s. Its main representatives were well-known for using a humorous discourse when writing their lyrics, mainly drawing inspiration from the spirit of ordinary
When the war in former Yugoslavia broke out in 1991, the highly popular musicians from the multi-ethnic Zabranjeno pusenje separated, and the band stopped performing for a while. Their current line-up was established in Belgrade, where singer Nele Karajlic took refuge from war-torn Sarajevo. He joined Kusturica and started writing music for his films, after the Serbian director split from his composer Goran Bregovic. Stribor Kusturica, Emir’s son, soon joined the band as a percussionist. Kusturica’s films and the music of the No Smoking Orchestra merged into a single, unique
By :
universe – the band’s music is an essential ingredient of his films, while cinema is an inspiration for the on-stage performances. They sometimes invite their friends - as well as their idols - to join them : Javier Bardem accompanied the band on percussion during their 2005 Cannes Film Festival gig and Diego Maradona climbed onto the stage in 2008 during a party which followed the launch of documentary “Kusturica by Maradona”. The key to the success of the No Smoking Orchestra is that they didn’t just copy other musical trends which have come and gone, but instead they have managed to find the conjuction between rock and traditional melodies rooted in the heritage of their homeland. The sources of their inspiration are icons of rock, but also musicians from local Balkan taverns - kafanas - where they gather to play popular folk songs to the public singing along in an ecstatic atmosphere, with their arms high up in the air. Kusturica’s band blends classic rock riffs with brass music, which is played during weddings and funerals all over Balkans, authentic Serbian folk melodies with a punk attitude, and Gypsy guitars and Hungarian violins with classical music. The stage performances of the No Smoking Orchestra are very similar to contemporary jazz imrovisations, mixing jazz music with the sound of rock and ethno ; that’s probably why they are being invited to play at jazz festivals all over Europe.
Melodías populares serbias con actitud punk, una guitarra gitana y un violín húngaro con música clásica “This could well be the music of the future – a new flavor”, said Joe Strummer, leader of The Clash, when the famous UK band performed with No Smoking Orchestra in Venice in 1999.
Emir Kusturica, A MASTER OF HAPPINESS
Víctor Guillot Journalist and director of the Centro de Interpretación del Cine en Asturias (CICA)
Emir Kusturica’s films placed former Yugoslavia and its cinematic tradition on the map, but they also did more than just that. They broke geographical, cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries, and in doing so created a unique mythology.
Emir Kusturica has stated in some interviews that his work truly mirrors the evolution of the Balkan peoples, a path which shifts between euphoria and pain. It is no exaggeration to affirm that his movies are a treatise on happiness, born from a Dionysian activism that whose result is both sentimental and
PERFIL Emir Kusturica’s response to the war and destruction of his country - Yugoslavia - are his films, with their humanism
Kusturica is a film director who can turn a movie illusion into reality: after the
Guevara, Bergman, Bruce-Lee... Joyful funerals of Hollywood video tapes are organized during the festival. Kusturica’s art
and their onirical celebration of life. They blend imaginative baroque images worthy of Fellini with
filming of Life Is A Miracle, he transformed the film set into a village, and set up
is in perfect harmony with his life, in which his family plays a central role: his wife Maja, the producer of his films, his son
the anthropological pessimism of Dostoevsky. His irony comes from his Slavic
his own home there. He may have lost his country, Yugoslavia, and his home city
Stribor, who plays alongside his father in the No Smoking Orchestra and makes music for his films, and his daughter Dunja,
roots, but his vision of cinema is truly European. It contains ingredients
of Sarajevo, but he nevertheless built himself a new home - not far from his native
who is in charge of selecting the students’ films to be shown at Kustendorf. They are the core of a joyful tribe, made up of
absorbed from the places which have had the greatest influence on his
Bosnia, set in the dream-like scenery of the Serbian mountains. Five years ago, he
family and friends, which surrounds the famous director for most of his time. In everything that he does, Kusturica remains
Behind a robust, bear-like appearance hides one of the most prolific contemporary
work: the multicultural spirit of Sarajevo, the city where he was born,
established a film and music festival named Kustendorf, which celebrates cinema
true to himself and his artistic integrity, defying conformism and political correctness. His political views, as well as his stand
European filmmakers. But besides making films, he is also a guitar player, an actor,
Prague, where he studied at the famous Czech film school, like Milos
d’auteur and local culture and gastronomy. There, you can meet his friends Jim
against corporative capitalism and the hegemony of the US in the world, are rooted in his strong sense of justice and in the
an architect and a writer. His complex artistic vision reflects the region which he
Forman before him, and France, where his international career started.
Jarmush and Johnny Depp, sitting at Restaurant Visconti, contemplating the snowy
recent history of his country.
comes from, the Balkans, sat on the crossroads between Eastern and Western
He won the Palme d’Or at the 1985 Cannes film festival for When father
mountains. Kustendorf became a symbol of Kusturica’s artistic vision - anti-global
European cultural and political influences.
was away on business and for Underground ten years later.
and anti-Hollywood - with streets named after his idols: Diego Maradona, Che
A free voice
A free voice in a world full of constraints. A life devoted to an artistic utopia.
By : A. O.
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magical, yet simultaneously grotesque and out of proportion, without falling into complacency or evading political commitment. All of these have made him one of the most singular chroniclers of Serbia and, by extension, of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. One of Kusturica’s basic aims has been to contrast the Dionysian and joyful atmosphere of his work with the Apollonian feeling of Hollywood storytelling. “In the first half of the 20th Century, Hollywood was the world capital for idealism, and I am an idealist. Welles, Lubitsch or Capra, directors I admire, passed away one after the other, and ever since American movies have been the centre of liberal capitalist conservatism”. When Father Was Away On Business (Otac na sluzbenom putu, 1985), Underground (1995), Time Of The Gypsies (Dom za Vesanje, 1989), Black cat, white cat (Crna maska, beli macor, 1998), Life Is A Miracle (Zivot je cudo, 2004) and Promise Me This (Zavet, 2007), are all movies in which Kusturica proposes a therapeutic look at cinema through life and death stories. Stories where tenderness and control meet, and which feature adorable rogues, cocaine addict mob leaders and characters as hyperactive as the gypsy beats they listen to. In the movies of this Bosnian self-proclaimed-Serbian director, a funeral can co-exist with a marriage, and everything is done in order to allow collective sorrow to flow and be discharged between shouts and laughter.
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Kusturica’s movies are inspired by Federico Fellini and his Amarcord (1973). The Italian master’s style dazzled the young director while studying at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In his memoirs Smrt je neprovjerena glasina (Death is an unverified Rumour) of 2010, Kusturica confesses that Amarcord was to his movies “what the Big Bang was to the Universe. Its images and ideas became the source all my film rivers flow from. Anything that has happened in my life as a movie maker can be measured with regard to that movie”. It is true that Fellini’s style was fit for explaining life in Yugoslavia, but it’s also true that Yugoslavian literature already had such writers as Ivo Andric, who had told the story of the Balkans in his novels The Bridge On The Drina (1945) or Bosnian Chronicle, also known as Chronicles Of Travnik (1945), clear antecedents of an understanding of storytelling as an ensemble in which chronicles, magic and legend fuse to explain the development of a heterogeneous people, subject to the Turkish Empire first and to the Austro-Hungarian Empire later.
By : Jordi Sánchez Navarro Researcher on Audiovisual Media and programmer in Anima’t (Sitges-Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico de Catalunya) between 2004 and 2012
LA FIRMA
This year, after several years in the pipeline, the Gijón International Film Festival includes for the first time an official section on animation, Animaficx. Here we showcase the most innovative, daring and creative projects in an area which is ever more central to our understanding of yesterday’s, tomorrow’s and today’s cinema.
Long-length features directed by Emir Kusturica 2008
Maradona by Kusturica
1993
Arizona Dream
Silver Bear in Berlin Film Festival
2007
Promise Me This
(Zavet) 2004
1988 Life Is A Miracle
(Zivot je cudo)
(Dom za vesanje) Best Director Award in Cannes Film Festival
Cesar Award to the best movie in the European Union
2001
Super 8 Stories
1998
Black Cat, White Cat
Time of the Gypsies
It is no exaggeration to say that his movies are a treatise on happiness
1985
Father’s on a business trip
(Otac na sluzbenom putu) Gold Palm in Cannes Film Festival FIPRESCI Award
(Crna macka, beli macor) Silver Lion in Venice Film Festival
1981 1995
Underground
Gold Palm in Cannes Film Festival
Kusturica confesses that Amarcord was to his movies “what the Big Bang was to the Universe”
Kusturica, Emir. ¿Dónde estoy en esta historia? Memorias. Ediciones Península. Madrid, 2012.
Do you remember Dolly Bell?
(Sjecas li se Dolly Bell)
Animation is the natural ally of those of us who seek movies capable of surprising us and calling into question our ideas about what can be represented in moving images. The traditional dominant visual discourses are challenged by the capacity of different animation techniques to materialize and articulate signifiers and meanings, which would be extraordinarily difficult to portray in any other way. In the world of audiovisual expression, which has historically been dominated (with some exceptions) by the power of storytelling, of events that can be reduced to causes and consequences and translatable to words, animation has always been at the avantgarde, proving convincingly that movies are also, and above all, a matter of visual dialogue.
Silver Lion in Venice Festival
On the other hand, Kusturica’s work cannot be understood without considering the tradition created by other directors, such as Goran Markovic (Tito and me/Tita i ja, 1992, and Burlesque Tragedy/Urnebesna Tragedija, 1995), Slobodan Sijan (Who’s that singing over there, 1980) or Dusan Kovácevic (Balkan Spy/ Balkanski spijun, 1981, and Profesionalac, 2003). It is Kovácevic himself, playwright, screenwriter and director, who created the political and cultural interest (and became alma mater) of a group of creators labelled the New Yugoslavian Cinema, born in the wake of Tito’s death. The group dared to openly criticize the regime through a type of comedy related to the Italian and Spanish traditions: from Ferreri and Risi to Berlanga and Azcona. Even today we can see similarities between Kusturica and Álex de la Iglesia’s grotesque tendencies, as the latter also conceives cinema in group and political terms. But why has Kusturica’s cinema transcended the Balkans while the other directors have not managed to cross that border? The answer may lie in Kusturica’s sense of exaggeration. He has developed it in each of his movies, raising his films to the epic sphere, while the others have been satisfied with simply trying to create a comedy with dramatic depth and political background.
For the Serbian, the most unbridled comedy in the most tragic context produces an epic story. The will to take characters to the extreme led the Serbian director to shoot Maradona By Kusturica, 2008, a documentary that follows the steps of the Argentinian star, alternating between interviews and archive footage and allowing us to discover the most dramatic profile of one who is, probably, the best football player in history. This is not only a matter of devotion to a sport; the most interesting element of this work is the admiration for someone who is known for the Dionysus-like, epic and tragic dimension of his actions. “Maradona is someone so charismatic that he became the image of poor people in Latin America. He is not someone to forget his roots. His football resembled dancing, while his life resembled a tragedy”. Kusturica is now preparing a biopic about Pancho Villa. “If we look at our bandits and rebels, no one has been so big. I feel a great historical admiration for him”.
This capacity to call into question some of our deep-rooted ideas about what communication by means of images should be, would be enough to grant animation a privileged place among the artistic means of expression of the 20th and 21st centuries. But that is not its only value. Animation is also a fantastic tool for avant-garde visual expression, for the development of a truly pop culture, for the creation of cult phenomena and for pure and wonderful entertainment. These four forces (avant-garde plastic expression, pop culture, cult and entertainment) have been the strengths that have traditionally spurred animation. And such have been observed in the festivals that have revealed animation’s hybrid and changing shapes, festivals such as Annecy, Hiroshima, Cinanima in Espinho (Portugal) or Zagreb’s Animafest. Festivals that for decades have kept up with the never-ending list of British animation schools and styles, the ever-lively animation coming from Western Europe and the unstoppable production of Eastern Europe. In the last decades, mainstream festivals have included animation sections in their official program, proving that it is no longer a minor genre, a product devoted exclusively
to children or a safe haven for marginal audiences and creators. Through festivals, animation has earned the respect and appreciation of critics and audiences. With rigour and care, they have revealed the works of such pioneers as Starewicz, Alexeieff, Tyrlová, Trnka or McLaren, modern classics such as Svankmajer, Laloux or Bakshi, or the creators of the Golden Age of American cartoon, to name a few. They have also introduced audiences to Japanese animation, both in its most institutionalised and its more alternative versions, with infographics and 3-D technology or with stop-motion (before Pixar or Aardman made them so well-known). Festivals have, in short, made us understand that a parallel history of cinema can be found in animation, one worth knowing and celebrating. But what is important is not the role animation has played in the history of audiovisual media, but rather, the role it plays today and will still play in the future. Specialized festivals or events with sections devoted to the topic show that animation is a field of infinite creativity. During the last few years, “Anima’t”, the section of Sitges-Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico de Catalunya, where I have the honour of working as a programmer, has shown the audience works by such contemporary masters as Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Hosoda, who in spite of their fame and success in Japan, have not had easy access to the West. We have also regularly shown works by Phill Mulloy or Bill Plympton, to give just two examples of indomitable talent, and we have uncovered film geniuses whose work expands our horizons about the moving image, for example, Juan Pablo Zaramella and Philippe Grammaticopoulos. Other Festivals have done the same with other creators, proving that animation is an unstoppable engine for narrative and visual innovation in today’s cinema and will continue to be one in the future.
Les ventres (Philippe Grammaticopoulos, 2009).
Animation is an unstoppable engine for narrative and visual innovation in today’s cinema
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HISTORIA DEL FESTIVAL On Sunday 21st July 1963, Gijón town council held the official reception for personalities attending the first edition of the Certamen Internacional de Cine-TV Infantil. At half past four in the afternoon of that same day the first selected films were shown at the Universidad Laboral. The tickets cost 15 and 20 pesetas. These were the titles: The Magic World Of Topo Gigio (Italy); Little Red Riding Hood And Her Three Friends (Mexico); The Boy Who Loved Horses (United Kingdom) and the short movie Michelino IB (Italy). El libro de la selva (1967).
The Gijón International Film Festival was born in 1963 as a Children’s Film-TV event and has evolved into one of the best-known and longest-running festivals in the country. Since its origins as a childhood and youth event the Festival has always paid special attention to younger audiences.
Gijón’s unique Festival was born in a city which, though small, is home to lively and dedicated people enthusiastic about culture and modernity. In spite of the well-known difficulties which have beset the region, it has maintained the strength to keep these events alive thanks to popular support, especially among the young. Gijón successfully combines the fun and didactic elements of film, and carefully selects movies which are difficult to see at other festivals.
By : Almudena Corrales Geography and History teacher and author of the research “El Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón (1963-1981)”.
En apenas dos décadas el certamen llegó a contar con la participación de 40 países, y en cada edición la presencia extranjera fue superior a la docena de
We must look back to the sixties in order to relive the beginnings of the Festival, which this year celebrates its 50-year anniversary. At the time, Spain was enjoying a period of economic prosperity caused by the end of autarchy and by the arrival of foreign aid, which combined to create a more relaxed social atmosphere in which new international movies began to reach Spanish audiences. A series of international festivals were set up in the fifties: the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián (1953), the Semana de Cine Religioso y de Valores Humanos de Valladolid (1956) or the Festival de Cine de Bilbao (1959). Cinema soon progressed from being a simple experiment to a summer attraction, and entrepreneurs were aware of the economic possibilities of this means of expression, and of its attraction to audiences and its potential to promote geographical regions. For this reason different cities in Asturias set up events, though not all survive to this day. One of the most productive and long- lasting proposals was based on the personal project of an artist. Isaac del Rivero, born in Colunga, was a talented creator of graphic storytelling who published his first work at the age of seventeen in the newspaper La Nueva España. He was also a great fan of the movies since childhood, and looked back fondly on the shows he had attended at the Campos Elíseos theatres in Gijón. He often bought magazines devoted to movies,
películas, con nacionalidades que nos pueden llamar tanto la atención en aquella época como Pakistán (1965),
By :
Taiwán (1977) o Ceilán (1979). Muy
MERCEDES ÁLVAREZ
valorada en las primeras ediciones fue la cinematografía de los países del Este, seguida por la de los países anglosajones, como Reino Unido y Estados Unidos. De
The Magic World Of Topo Gigio (1961).
such as Cine en 7 Días and Pantallas y Escenarios. One of the sections of the former was devoted to setting up cinema clubs and relaxing the red tape this involved. The Cine Club C-7 de Gijón was born, created with the aim of “increasing its members’ cultural and artistic interest, in particular to film and organizing and providing access to such activities as the library, disco, newspaper archive, cinema club, sports, theatre, singing and music playing, photography, painting and shooting amateur movies” . We have very little data on the original budget of the Festival, but we do know that the actual cost of the first edition was 763.843,95 pesetas. The theatre at the Universidad Laboral in Gijón was the venue selected for most of the Festival’s events, and it was dominated by the official competitive section. The theatre hosted 1500 people: 950 seats in the aisle and the rest in boxes and the amphitheatre. Transport was to be included in the price of the ticket, to be sold in booths set up in Plaza del Parchís, which at the time was known as Plaza del Generalísimo. One of the main features of the Festival, from its very beginning, was the wide range of films aimed at 14-15 year-olds. The Festival was described as an event with a broad scope, not only screening live action and animation movies but also including educational and recreational elements. Awards were to be given by an international jury and by another formed of minors. The names of the awards were Pelayo de Oro and Platero de Plata respectively. During the week-long Festival, activities ran with the aim of promoting children’s cinema, such as the so-called “International Chats” which brought together experts on the matter. The creative spirit of young people was fostered by means of a series of contests and exhibits for children, dealing with literature, photography, music and connections to well-known children’s film companies such as Walt Disney. Archivo personal Isaac del Rivero.
Full of vitality at the age of 80, Isaac del Rivero (Colunga, 1931), founder of the Festival, welcomes us into his office to explain the beginnings of this pioneering event. “Setting up a film festival in those conditions and with no money was terrible”, says the man who created the first ever festival for boys and girls in Spain. In spite of the difficulties, Del Rivero managed to create a film celebration that has stood the test of time and which this year celebrates its 50th edition. “In the sixties I had an advertising agency. We dealt with many advertising projects, but worked in a different manner to other agencies. I only used graphics”, he says. When thinking about what could be done that would be “cool and eye-catching”, Del Rivero realised that there existed no film festivals devoted to young audiences. Children “are the first who should have a movie festival for them, so that they can get to know and learn about cinema”, he affirms. So it wasn’t long before he developed a way to bring film to the young people of Asturias. The rigidity of Franco’s dictatorship prevented him from organizing the event “as an individual”, so he asked the magazine Cine en 7 Días for help. “I wrote to them and told them that among my various projects, the main one was creating the Festival Internacional de Cine para la Infancia (International Film Festival for Children). Their answer was: great, go ahead” says the man who led the event for 19 editions, until 1981. “That was the starting point”, he recalls. Fifteen countries took part in the first edition. “I started big”, says the founder half a century later. Censorship made it difficult to bring foreign movies to Spain, as the first director of the Certamen Internacional de Cine para Niños explains: “if censors said something was no-go, you were left stranded. In any case,
they accepted the first movies I sent”. Nonetheless, he started fearing for those films which, even though suitable for children, portrayed reality with all its light and shadows. “I said: listen, say I go to Paris and I like a movie, what do I do? Because I have to say whether I want it or not”. So a censor started travelling with him. “In the end I managed to avoid the films being censored or having anyone accompanying me”, he says, as he relates how he managed to show films from Eastern European countries and the USSR, which “were those who made the best movies for children”. Isaac del Rivero, whose love of cinema began with films he saw in his youth such as The third man (Reed, 1949), combined screenings of movies for children with more adult films such as Zazie dans le métro (Malle, 1960) or Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915). During the week of the Festival, which took place between June and July or in September, depending on the edition, Gijón hosted key figures in the world of children. Among them was the poet Gloria Fuertes. “All of them were thrilled with the Festival because they saw the tremendous effort that was behind it”, Del Rivero explains. Those years involved hard work but the founder did what he could with the same energy he still possesses today. “I live things as I did at the time, I have to live what I do to the fullest, otherwise it doesn’t work for me”.
este último, destacan las películas de Disney, en concreto, El libro de la selva o Los aristogatos. Prácticamente todos los filmes españoles dedicados a la infancia fueron presentados en Gijón, debido precisamente a la condición de “escaparate nacional” que el Gobierno otorgó al Certamen: Alas y Garras, de Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Las aventuras de Mortadelo y Filemón, de los Estudios Vara en sendas ocasiones, o El Mago de los Sueños, de Francisco Macián, creador de la famosa Familia Telerín. By : A. C.
STAFF Directores del periódico: Nacho Carballo Jorge Iván Argiz Redactora jefa: Mercedes Álvarez Editor de contenidos: Jesús Palacios
Han colaborado en este número:
Traducciones: Diego García Cruz
Manolo D. Abad, Mercedes Álvarez, Óscar Brox, José Havel, Claudia Lorenzo, Ana Otasevic, Jesús Palacios.
Impresión: PROMECAL
La firma: Ignacio del Valle
Fotografía: Marta Gómez Lucas Pensar Audiovisual
Página de cómic y caricatura: Albert Monteys
SIGNUM (www.signum.es)
Diseño y maquetación:
Departamento comercial: 985 18 29 48 comercial@gijonfilmfestival.com
www.gijonfilmfestival.com
Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón C/ Cabrales, 82. 33201, Gijón (España) Tlf. (+34) 985 18 29 40 Fax. (+34) 985 18 29 44 E-mail: info@gijonfilmfestival.com Síguenos en: Facebook (Gijon International Film Festival. Official Site) Twitter (@Gijonfilmfest) Flickr (gijonfilmfestival)