Catalonia at the Film Festival Cinematik in Piešťany
The 10th annual IFF Cinematik held on 10 – 15 September will introduce its visitors to booming and award-winning, yet still a bit overlooked Catalan cinema, which currently takes pride in a strong generation of filmmakers. The programme Spain Magnified: Catalonia will offer over 20 films and several meetings with filmmakers. Jaime Rosales will come to Piešťany to personally accept the Respect Award.
The viewers will have an opportunity to get to know Catalonia in a number of ways, as there are three sections devoted to the region: Respect: Jaime Rosales, Contemporary Catalan Cinema, and Cult & Beyond.
Jaime Rosales is a successor of the European auteur film tradition. As his sources of influence he cites Robert Bresson and Pier Paolo Pasolini, but at the same time Rosales remains an author with his own style difficult to categorize. His work is consistent, yet always searching for new possibilities. That is why he regularly screens his films at the Cannes Film Festival, in sections devoted to courageous and inovative films.
Cinematik will not only screen all five Jaime Rosales’s feature films, but will welcome him at the festival as well. The director had received carte blanche to select 4 films that are permanently inspiring him and that will help the viewers to categorize his work within a broader context of European cinema.
The Contemporary Catalan Cinema will present a representative selection of nine outstanding personalities of this Spanish region, many of which have been awarded prizes at major festivals. Among others, the selection includes Augustí Vila, winner of Karlovy Vary IFF; Isaki Lacuesta, winner of San Sebastian IFF; Sergio Caballero, already known to Cinematik visitors and winner of IFF Rotterdam; as well Albert Serra, enfant terrible of Catalan cinema and holder of the Golden Leopard from Locarno IFF. As Cinematik is eager to search for pearls in the waters of young cinema, the section programme also includes three strong debutes, among them the film La Plaga by Neus Ballús which, by mixing fiction with documentary, charmed the visitors at Berlinale and many other festivals.
Even the popular section Cult & Beyond is dressed in Catalan colours and will screen films full of the Spanish style thrill, among them the award-winning Black Bread, Sleep Tight, and the iconic REC.
The section Spain Magnified: Catalonia is organized in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain, Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Catalan Films & TV.