SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct. 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canarian documentary film ‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’, directed by Luis Roca and produced by Marta de Santa Ana Pulido, has won the Critics’ Prize at the 17th International Documentary Film Festival of Uruguay, Atlantidoc 2023.
The Jury of the Association of Film Critics of Uruguay (ACCU), made up of Luciana Rodríguez, Fernando Palumbo and Sol Bauzá, has decided to award the award for Best Documentary ‘Ronald Melzer’ to the film “for being the most rounded, efficient, profound “, rhythmic and brave. Leafy, in its 74 minutes, even in the pulse of the attention it sustains and also surprising in contrasts and nuances to tell the story of a very rich creative imprint, a critical thinker with its lights and shadows.”
‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’ had been one of the twelve selected in the official international section among the more than 600 documentaries that arrived at the Festival this year. For its director, Ricardo Casas, the Uruguay International Documentary Film Festival is an event that has “the objective of opening a space for quality documentaries.”
Producer Marta de Santa Ana Pulido was “very happy” for this award, which is “especially valuable for coming from the field of film criticism.” “The words he dedicates to us are overwhelming. Making quality films from Gran Canaria is a titanic struggle. This award is, without a doubt, a great reward.”
He wanted to dedicate it to the entire team from Gran Canaria, Calanda (Aragón), Madrid, Mexico and Santa Bárbara (California) that has participated in it, and to all the public and private entities that have supported the film: Spanish Cultural Action of the Government of Spain, Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Government of the Canary Islands, city councils of Madrid and Calanda, Diputación de Teruel, Fundación Mapfre, Spanish Radio Television, Telemadrid and Televisión Canaria.
For the director, “it is a joy to see that the film is appreciated this way, very far from where it was conceived, in this case so resoundingly by the words of the jury. It is true that the responses from the first screenings were positive and, in In many cases, the film has had a very deep impact on viewers. ‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’ is enjoyed letting go, without prejudice and on the largest possible screen. When making it, what worried me most was not so much its impact today, as if he would be able to see himself with the same or more desire in 25 years.
The documentary film, the first produced in Gran Canaria to achieve distribution in commercial cinemas, the first also produced by a woman alone, vindicates for today’s public the figures of the writer Benito Pérez Galdós and the filmmaker Luis Buñuel through a narration that hybridizes the classic documentary with animated cinema, auto fiction and mockumentary.
In parallel, ‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’ continues its route through festivals. From November 15 to 23, it will compete at the 40th Bogotá International Film Festival, Bogocine (Colombia) in the ‘Art Documentary’ category. It has been selected from more than 2,000 films from around the world and, among these, more than 100 art documentaries. Furthermore, last Friday the feature-length documentary had its premiere on national television as part of a special Spanish Television program commemorating the 40th anniversary of the death of Luis Buñuel.
The Canary Islands documentary was screened alongside Luis Buñuel’s films ‘Belle de Jour’ (1967) and ‘The Exterminating Angel’ (1962). In the Canary Islands, the film had been broadcast on Televisión Canaria on June 2, coinciding with the celebration of Canary Islands Day.
‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’ was distributed in theaters in 17 Spanish cities in March 2023 by Karma Films. He has also had special passes in educational centers in Madrid and Tenerife, at the request of the teachers, and on May 10, the day that marked the 180th anniversary of Galdós’s birth, in the Auditorium of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria , in a special event that was attended by more than 400 people.
In addition, the film has had screenings in Ukraine, Gran Canaria and La Palma. In Ukraine, it was the first Spanish film to be screened at a special event since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. It was last September 29 in the air raid shelter of the Palace of Arts in Lviv, in the framework of the XI International Congress of Hispanists of Ukraine. Marta de Santa Ana and Luis Roca traveled to Ukraine, a country at war, a gesture highly valued by the country’s Hispanists.
In addition, ‘Benito Pérez Buñuel’ has been screened as part of the celebration in 2023 of the 180th anniversary of the birth of Benito Pérez Galdós, at the Real Club Náutico de Gran Canaria and at the old Santa Brígida cinema, in Gran Canaria. It was also screened on the island of La Palma, in the Plaza de España in Los Llanos de Aridane, within the framework of the Hispano-American Writers Festival. It was its first outdoor screening.
