8 FEATURE FILMS AND 10 SHORT FILMS WILL TAKE PART IN THE FUGAS COMPETION SECTION

11/04/17

DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017 affirms its commitment to experimental film with the Fugas Competition.

The Fugas Competition is a newly created section that offers audiences some weighty entries that are innovative, daring and have a distinct political and experimental character.
The competition will feature the Spanish premiere of 6 feature films, including Paris est une fete - Un film en 18 vagues by Sylvain George, Postcards from the Verge by Sebastian Mez, Stranger in Paradise by Guido Hendrikx and El mar la mar by J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta.
DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017 will also feature the Spanish premiere of 6 short films, including Find Fix Finish by Mila Zhulukenko and Sylvain Cruziat, xxxxxxx by Liliana Colombo, Turtles Are Always Home by Rawane Nassif and Das Gestell by Philip Widmann, among others.
DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017 will include 3 competitive sections: National, Fugas and International. The films in the National Competition section have already been announced and those in the International Competition section will be announced at a later date.

The DOCUMENTAMADRID International Documentary Film Festival organised by the Madrid City Council will be held from 4 to 14 May in Cineteca. This 14th edition of the festival will feature Fugas, a new competitive section that aims to offer narratives outside the bounds of the conventional which seek to blur the ever-thinning line between documentary and fiction, which also offer some fascinating examples of the essay film and have a strong self-referential element, wherein intimacy, epistolary interplay and performance serve as a starting point and enable development of some of the productions. The films in this section offer a critical and daring examination of the image and of contemporary society, questioning genres and audiovisual languages.

The Fugas competitive section will include 8 feature films and 10 short films. The competition will offer audiences the Spanish premiere of the feature film Paris est une fete- Un film en 18 vagues, the latest work of French filmmaker Sylvain George in which refugees, Nuit Debout and peace camps are blended with abstract, dreamlike lyric sequences, like nightmares that manifest themselves in the reality of the streets of Paris. It will also feature the Spanish premiere of Postcards from the Verge by Sebastian Mez, an authoritative look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Dutch film Stranger in Paradise by Guido Hendrikx and the American film El mar la mar by J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta, one of the latest productions by the Harvard’s prestigious Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL).

As regards short films, the event will feature the Spanish premiere of the German film Find Fix Finish by Mila Zhulukenkoy and Sylvain Cruiziat, which presents us with the living proof of a society under surveillance by a technological and militarised Big Brother, and of Turtles Are Always Home by Lebanese director Rawane Nassif, as well as the British production xxxxxxx by Liliana Colombo, among other films.

Films that have won awards at prestigious festivals

In addition to screening unreleased films, in its Fugas competition section DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017 will screen films that have garnered awards in prestigious international competitions, such as the feature film La Deuxième Nuit by Eric Pauwels, which won the Jean Vigo Award for Best Director at the Punto de Vista Festival (Pamplona), and the Dutch production Stranger in Paradise by Guido Hendrikx, which received the Special Jury Award for a Dutch Documentary at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. For its part, El Proyecto by Cuban filmmaker Alejandro Alonso Estrella, a fascinating and unclassifiable work that borders on science fiction, political observation and an examination of images, will make its worldwide debut at the upcoming Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon. In addition, Ascent by Fiona Tan, an exquisite example of cinematographic narration conducted exclusively via photographs, premiered at the last edition of the Locarno Film Festival.

In the short film category, the festival will screen films such as No’I by Aline Magrez, which won the Promotional Award at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur Festival and the Jury’s Award at the FICEG, Cidade Pequena by Diogo Costa Amarante, which received an award at the Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival, Colombi by Luca Ferri, which received a Special Mention at the Genova Film Festival, and Find Fix Finish by Mila Zhluktenko and Sylvain Cruiziat, which also received a Special Mention at the International Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg Festival. The section will also include FugasDas gestell by Philip Widmann and The I Mine by Emilio Moreno, which both took part in the Rotterdam International Film Festival –the latter also participated in the Las Palmas Film Festival– and Les Images Parfaites, the new work by filmmaker Béatrice Plumet, which participated in the Sacramento French Film Festival.

FUGAS COMPETITION SECTION

FEATURE FILMS:

• ASCENT, Fiona Tan

• EL MAR LA MAR, J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta

• EL PROYECTO, Alejandro Alonso Estrella

• LA DEUXIÈME NUIT, Eric Pauwels

• PARIS EST UNE FETE- UN FILM EN 18 VAGUES, Sylvain George

• POSTCARDS FROM THE VERGE, Sebastian Mez

• STRANGER IN PARADISE, Guido Hendrikx

• WE MAKE COUPLES. Mike Hoolboom

SHORT FILMS:

• CIDADE PEQUENA, Diogo Costa Amarante