SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 26 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Guía de Isora International Documentary Film Festival and Market, ‘Miradas Doc’, starts this Friday in the south of the island with a complete program of projections and activities, among which the projection of more than 30 films to the official sections stands out from more than 30 countries.
In this edition, the ‘Personal Look’ prize will also be awarded to the Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase, to whom a special exhibition will be dedicated.
The section ‘Mirada Encendida’, dedicated to war correspondents, pays homage this year to Maruja Torres and there will also be a meeting with the journalist Jesús Cintora and the guest country this year will be Cuba, through a retrospective of eight documentaries.
The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, highlighted at the press conference to present the festival that ‘Miradas Doc’ is a proposal, already consolidated over time, that offers “the possibility of watching documentaries that offer a different vision of the events that occur in the world” and stressed that the real importance of this event lies in the fact that there is also the possibility of generating live “a forum for debate on what has been seen, and, most importantly, that this forum can be done with the protagonists or directors”.
But Pedro Martín also pointed out the great importance of the ‘Mercado Miradas Doc Market’, “a space from which doors are opened to the world and allows that, from a place as some said far away, content can be transferred to televisions and distributors of all the planet”.
The president concluded by saying that the special international attention that is produced during the celebration of this event “is an indicator of the interest that a cultural proposal such as the one proposed in Guía de Isora arouses outside of Tenerife”.
The mayoress of Guía de Isora, Josefa Mesa, pointed out that “the City Council has defended the festival tooth and nail” after having gone through “all the stages”.
“This is a festival from the south, far from the capital, and yet it has been consolidated and its market is a benchmark in Europe, many filmmakers want to premiere their first work in ‘MiradasDoc’, opportunities are offered to new creators “, said.
Mesa also highlighted the role of the training area since the festival “does not leave any branch untouched”, while highlighting the importance of reflection “on the world and on life” to which the films that pass through the screen of the Guía de Isora Auditorium.
“The pandemic has not left us a better society and it is necessary to raise awareness,” he concluded.
The festival’s director, David Baute, highlighted that fifteen years ago they gave the ‘Personal Look’ award to Abbas Kiarostami, “an Iranian filmmaker who knew how to break the line between fiction and documentary, who fought reality with visual poetics”. And now, 15 years later, Naomi Kawase is being awarded, “a woman who also starts from a cinema of the real, with magical elements, to make a daring cinema, based on what she lived in a rural environment — like Guía de Isora –, with all the virtues of the rural community, of tradition”.
TELEVISIONS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD
In these years, he pointed out, “MiradasDoc has managed to position itself in a very important place and proof of this is the market, which this year is attended by such important media as the BBC or the New York Times, as well as televisions from all over the world, among they, from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina or Mexico, all the international documentary film funds, the two best documentary film festivals in the world, HotDocs, from Canada, and the IDFA, from Amsterdam and the most important documentary film distributors”.
The Government of the Canary Islands’ commitment to documentary film also translates into undoubted support for ‘MiradasDoc’ throughout its journey, because the institutions must “be with consolidated projects and of this depth”, assured the coordinator of Canary Islands Film , Natacha Mora, who participated in the press conference on behalf of the Canarian Institute for Cultural Development (ICDC).
Mora also highlighted the importance of the fact that in ‘MiradasDoc’ the festival coincides with a “very enriching” market, it is a meeting that favors the entire industry. “When we talk about cinema on the islands, it is necessary not only to talk about the upcoming shoots, but also that we have our industry that we must support,” he added.
For her part, the president of the CajaCanarias Foundation, Margarita Ramos, pointed out that “the Foundation has kept a clear eye on the benefits of this initiative since its inception and as a whole but, year after year, and following the field of vision that currently marks the foundational framework, it has been extremely comforting to focus our eyes on the great didactic work carried out by the contest from the ‘EnseñanDoc’ initiative, so aligned with the activity that tends to open the eyes to the creativity of the youngest who are develops permanently through Despertares CajaCanarias”.
