IBERODOCS, Ibero-American Documentary Film Festival Scotland, is back for its fourth edition in Edinburgh to celebrate rich and thought provoking stories from Ibero-America.
The event, which will run from the 10th to the 14th of May in the Filmhouse, will screen 15 documentaries, ten features and five short films, from 11 different countries.
This year, IberoDocs is proud to showcase 14 Scottish premieres, whose themes intersect and interconnect.
The festival is made up of five different sections devoted to various topics. The festival will open with Ada For Mayor (Pau Faus, Spain 2016), which will lead us into the first two of the five themes encountered in the 2017 programme: social and political Activism – also visible in Pizarro (Simón Hernández, Colombia 2016) and Women Empowerment. The latter can also be found in Ama-San (Claudia Varejão, Portugal 2016) and The Pretty Ones (Melisa Liebenthal, Argentina 2016).
Some of this year’s documentaries aim at raising consciousness around welfare.
Our Caring category will examine the end of life, retirement, and peace through the screening of Suddenly My Thoughts Halt (Jorge Pelicano, Portugal 2014), I’m Not From Here (Maite Alberdi, Giedre Zickyte, 2016) and Still Here (Lorenzo Hagerman, Mexico 2016), a European premiere.
The festival will also feature inspirational documentaries of renowned directors that have travelled to other countries in order to capture different cultures. These films, such as El Dorado XXI (Salomé Lamas, Portugal/France 2016) connect to the topic Outside Gaze.
To indulge audience curiosity around cinema, the programme includes the topic, Films about Film, reflected in Cinema Novo (Eryk Rocha, Brazil 2016) and Rest in Peace, Mr Hopper (Daniel Garcia and Aurelio Medina, Spain 2017). Last but not least, a retrospective of the great Ricardo Íscar, Spanish master of documentaries, will allow the public to experience life through the frame.
Q&A with the documentary filmmakers
The directors, Pau Faus, Ricardo Íscar, Daniel García and Aurelio Medina, will attend the festival to screen their movies. The audience will have the opportunity to meet them and ask questions in an interactive and engaging Q&A. Tickets for the screenings are already available at the Filmhouse Box Office and its webpage.
The festival reinforces its educational side this year with a documentary and postproduction editing workshop and a masterclass. The workshop will explore Daniel G. and Aurelio M.’s way of approaching the stage of post-production on their films, by looking at clips of their previous works and their most recent production, Rest In Peace Mr Hopper. In addition, the renowned director Ricardo Íscar will offer an open-access masterclass at the Scottish Documentary Institute – College of Art.
IberoDocs: a holistic experience
IberoDocs not only presents Edinburgh, the city of festivals, with excellent documentaries, but it also offers its attendees two art exhibitionsto relish between films. The first one starts the 1st of May at Filmhouse-Café. Ana G Chouciño curates a compilation of various artists from different nationalities and backgrounds around the concept: ‘Film is a Painted Mirror’. The exhibition will be available until the end of this IberoDocs edition.
The second, meanwhile, will be extended beyond the festival and is expected to run from the 12th to the 26th of May at Custom Lane, the Shore.
Curated by Antonio Cervera and produced by John Ennis, ‘Edinburgh: Edimburgo by HUNTER’ will present the public with a dialogue between Spain and Scotland, specifically the Spanish artist, HUNTER, and his own vision of the city of Edinburgh.
To celebrate Ibero-American culture, the festival will once again offer different activities, where the audience will have the opportunity to gather with the filmmakers and the team in receptions and parties with live music, food and drinks.
On Friday Night -after the screenings- IberoDocs will invite the audience to join the ´World Music Boogaloo’ party at La Belle Angèle, with Argentinian DJ MAXIROOTS and his band, IN CUMBIA.
Following the screening of the last film, the closing party will get started at 9pm in Akva and then carry on deep into the night, with live flamenco with a twist, music and dance.
Four years ‘challenging linguistic barriers and geographical borders’
IberoDocs emerged four years ago from the “need to challenge linguistic barriers and geographical borders, to break stereotypes and to show inspiring stories everyone can relate to,” Mar Felices, the festival director says.
The team is formed of a group of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American immigrants living in Edinburgh that were brought together by “the necessity of creating an Ibero-American culture platform,” she adds.
The aim of this event is to contribute to cultural integration in the United Kingdom.
Indeed, from its inception, IberoDocs has focused on addressing issues related to integration by screening documentaries that promote and facilitate dialogue between cultures.
This year festival support has reached new levels. IberoDocs count on the collaboration of more institutions than ever, which makes this 4th edition richer, deeper and more exciting: Creative Scotland, AC/E Spain’s Public Agency for Cultural Action, Instituto Camões Centre for Portuguese Language, Embassy of Spain in the UK, Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh, Mexican Embassy UK, Argentine Embassy London, Señal Colombia, Scottish Documentary Institute, Edinburgh Napier University – Screen Academy, Mental Health Foundation, Gayfield Creative Edinburgh, Art Travel Sense and Filmhouse.
* Visual materials (photos from previous editions, 2017 programme): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f6g9cd04evbwr6o/AAD25gUbgu7Y1HFOQwiWGpuWa?dl=0
* Interviews with Mar Felices, IberoDocs director, and documentary filmmakers attending the festival (Pau Faus, Ricardo Íscar, Daniel Garcia and Aurelio Medina) are available. If interested, please do not hesitate to send a request to the email media@iberodocs.org
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IberoDocs contact details…
Contact: Marina Force
Email: media@iberodocs.org
