20th LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – 20 FICLPGC (APRIL 9TH TO 18TH)
28 productions will compete for this edition’s Leacock Awards: ten features and eighteen short films emerging from the addition of several new titles to those selected for last year’s suspended edition
Miren Aperribay, Rodrigo Díaz and José Manuel Zamora, members of 2020’s planned jury, have confirmed their availability to judge those titles competing for the Canarian awards
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1st March 2021. As a result of the Festival’s cancellation in 2020, which was caused by last year’s confinement and the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the Selection Committee has added twelve new titles to the sixteen productions already announced last March. Therefore, the Canarian section shall be now made up of twenty-eight competing titles: ten features and eighteen short films, which will be screened from April 9th to April 12th. These circumstances have prompted the local competition to be extended for one more day, thus creating the most prolific Canarias Cinema in the history of the Film Festival.
After having considered ninety-one pieces, sixty-four in 2020 and twenty-seven in this year’s new entry process, the Selection Committee has reshaped the program of Canarias Cinema, a section devoted to films made or produced by Canarian people, by adding six new features to those by Miguel Mejías, Alexis Delgado Búrdalo, Théo Court (Orizzonti Award for Best Director at the 2019 Venice Film Festival thanks to his film Blanco en blanco) or the filmmaking partners Miguel G. Morales and Silvia Navarro (Grand Prize City of Lisbon Award at the 2019 IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival for their work De los nombres de las cabras).
The expansion in the feature film competition has allowed the Festival to release in the Islands some pieces by regular participants such as Alba González de Molina, David Baute or Dácil Manrique de Lara. Likewise, it has allowed to echo the voices of José Víctor Fuente, Tommy Llorens or even Irene Gutiérrez, who will participate with her feature Entre perro y lobo after having shown it at the 2020 Berlinale.
Regarding short films, the Festival had already confirmed the selection of works by talented-proven filmmakers such as Elio Quiroga, Octavio Guerra, Nayra Sanz Fuentes, David Sainz, Fernando Alcántara, David Delgado Sanginés or Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón, and by young promises like Rafael Montezuma, Claudia Torres, Pablo Vilas and Adriana Thomasa Carballo, the duo formed by illustrator Omar Al Abdul Razzak and director Shira Ukrainitz, or Enrique Diego, an expert in directing 2D animation projects and stop-motion. Besides, this edition will also include new pieces by some of the Festival’s regulars: Rafael Navarro Miñón, Cayetana H. Cuyás, Lamberto Guerra or Jonay García (this last one being out of contest), as well as a second short film by nationally renowned Octavio Guerra, and the last work by another participant used to international festivals, Víctor Moreno.
The Selection Committee declared a while back that the level of interest, originality and quality production of the works submitted in 2020 significantly surpassed those of 2019’s. Now they claim that Canarias Cinema brings together a considerable number of great talents, thus appearing as an excellent showcase for the genre and thematic diversity filmmakers born or connected to the Archipelago approach in their pieces. Canarias Cinema stands, then, as a huge event that displays creative richness emerging from or linked to the Canary Islands.
The Canarias Cinema Jury readjusts their agenda
Miren Aperribay, Rodrigo Díaz and José Manuel Zamorano will be in charge of judging the submitted pieces. These three members were announced in 2020 and have already confirmed their availability in 2021. Their decision will make them stay in the city one day more than originally expected because, due to the expansion of the section, the works scheduled from April 9th to April 12th will need more time than usual to be shown. They will publicly announce the winners on April 13th.
As it has been mentioned before, they are widely known for their commitment to culture and the spreading of film as an art form while working as distributors, programmers and producers.
Miren Aperribay founded and currently runs ATERA Films, a company which has distributed Basque productions like Handia or Loreak, and that also places its trust in new filmmakers and backs international productions such as Aloys (Audience Award at the 2016 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival and FIPRESCI Prize at the 2016 Berlinale’s Panorama Section) or the Chilean Araña (nominated to the Goya Awards for Best Ibero-American Film). Rodrigo Díaz, president of the Asociación por la Promoción de la Cultura Latinoamericana en Italia [Association for Latin American Cultural Promotion in Italy], is an expert in Latin American cinema who has directed from 1996 on the Trieste Latin American Film Festival, whom he represents as commissioner in other cities such as Roma, Udine, Padua, Brescia, Verona, Padua, Florencia, Cremona, Milán o Bolzano. He has also acted as a Latin American delegate for countless Italian festivals including the Venice or Locarno ones. Finally, José Manuel Zamorano is a consulting expert on independent cinema, a member of the European Film Academy and the founder and director of the Abycine International Film Festival (Albacete) and the Abycine Lanza-mercado Audiovisual Independiente [Abycine Independent Audiovisual Market-Launch]. Additionally, he has founded Albacete’s Film Archive and has collaborated with the Spanish Film Academy in order to promote the film cycle Cine Indie Español [Spanish Indie Cinema]. El legado (2004), In memoriam (2006) and Juegos de agua (2009) are some of the short films produced by Zamorano which have been recognized at several film festivals.
At last, the 28 works the experts will judge in order to grant this edition’s awards ―with a significant rise in the prizes, 3,500 and 2,000, to the best feature and best short film, respectively― are:
Feature Films
Blanco en blanco (White on White) by Théo Court (Spain, Chile, 2019, 100 min.)
De los nombres de las cabras (On the Names of the Goats) by Silvia Navarro Martín and Miguel G. Morales (Spain, 2019, 62 min.)
La viajante (The Wonderer) by Miguel Mejías (Spain, 2019, 85 min.)
This Film is About Me by Alexis Delgado Búrdalo (Spain, 2019, 61 min.)
El último arquero (The Last Archer) by Dácil Manrique de Lara (Spain, 2019, 75 min.)
El tiempo es nuestro (The Time Is Ours) by Alba González de Molina (Spain, 2020, 84 min.)
Éxodo climático by David Baute (Spain, 2020, 63 min.)
Entre perro y lobo (Between Dog and Wolf) by Irene Gutiérrez (Spain, Cuba, 2020, 75 min.)
A veces el amor? by José Víctor Fuente (Spain, 2020, 80 min.)
Ecos by Tommy Llorens (Spain, 2020, 90 min.)
Short films
Apache by Octavio Guerra (Spain, 2019, 20 min.)
Fuera de campo (Offscreen) by Pablo Vilas and Adriana Thomasa Carballo (Spain, 2019, 24 min.)
Irmandade by Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón (Spain, 2019, 9 min.)
Lección de japonés (y una promesa) by Kazuo Hara (Japanese lesson (and a promise) with Kazuo Hara) by David Delgado San Ginés (Spain, 2019, 12 min.)
Los espacios confinados (Confined Spaces) by Shira Ukrainitz and Omar Al Abdul Razzak (Spain, 2019, 12 min.)
Minotauro by Enrique Diego (Spain, 2019, 8 min.)
No signal by David Sainz (Spain, 2019, 5 min.)
Océano (Ocean) by Fernando Alcántara (Spain, 2020, 18 min.)
Pillimpo by Rafael Montezuma (Spain, 2019, 6 min.)
Selfie by Nayra Sanz Fuentes (Spain, 2019, 10 min.)
Versiones (Versions) by Claudia Torres (Spain, 2019, 14 min.)
Whence Comes the Rain by Elio Quiroga (Spain, 2019, 4 min.)
El confinamiento infinito (The Infinite Confinement) by Víctor Moreno (Spain, 2020, 5 min.)
El Alemán (The German) by Rafael Navarro Miñón (Spain, 2020, 20 min.)
Heurtebise by Octavio Guerra and Elisa Torres (Spain, 2020, 20 min.)
Lila by Lamberto Guerra (Spain, 2020, 20 min.)
Iguales (Equals) by Cayetana H. Cuyás (Spain, 2020, 11 min.)
Out of competition
Cuídate (Take Care) by Jonay García (Spain, 2020, 7 min.)
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