The Chilean documentary El recuerdo (The Memory) will be screened today at the Cervantes cinema at 7:00 p.m. After the screening, there will be a discussion with the director.
The Estonian feature film Vari will be presented by actress Ruth Gabriel at 9 p.m., also at the Cervantes cinema. After the screening, the director will chat with the audience.
Tamarite mágicoh! by Isabel Aparicio was the Aragonese documentary screened on this day of the festival.
The shadow of the Russian Empire looms large in Vari, the feature film in competition that can be seen tonight at 9:00 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema (actress Ruth Gabriel will host and present the film). Jaak Kilmi directs this Estonian film that tells the story of Juhan Liiv, a poet and detective suffering from the early stages of schizophrenia who solves gruesome murder cases in 1890s Estonia.
Kilmi traveled to Zaragoza today to present the film: “The film combines reality and fiction. Liiv is a beloved poet in Estonia who had schizophrenia, and I focused the story on a seven-year period during which he experienced an acute phase and nothing was known about him, which allowed me to imagine him solving crimes in a poetic way,” he explained.
At the press conference, he was accompanied by Chilean Cristóbal Vargas, director of the documentary in competition, El recuerdo (The Memory), which will be screened at 7:00 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema. The experimental production is based on in-depth research into repetitions in Chile’s transgenerational tree throughout history.
Vargas revealed that his work is based on the idea that world history is typical and that similar situations occur everywhere: “When one personally confronts one’s history through therapy, there are several phases. But how would an entire country react to neuro-emotional therapy about the history of that nation, in which there would be similarities, separations, or confrontations? Because when one confronts history, one tends toward polarization, and the documentary is a reflection on the fact that history is not linear, it is approached from different angles, and we are bound to believe that there is not just one truth.”
Zaragoza-based director Isabel Aparicio also attended the press conference to present the documentary ‘Tamarite mágicoh!’ alongside its producer, Jorge Aparicio. The Aragonese audiovisual work rescues and highlights the forgotten figure of José Florences Gili, born in Tamarite de Litera in 1872 and considered the first Aragonese magician to achieve worldwide fame, and was screened at 12:00 p.m. at the Caesaraugusta Theater Museum.
“Aragon is a land of magicians, and Florences Gili was an international figure who has not been recognized outside his field. No one today is capable of reproducing his most important game,” emphasized Jorge Aparicio. His sister, Isabel Aparicio, added that this was why they decided to make the documentary: “The original idea was to talk about him, but little by little we started connecting people, stories… and we couldn’t turn down the almost magical opportunity that life gave us to develop it into what it has finally become.”
The morning session at the museum was rounded off with a round table discussion on the ins and outs of the documentary that opened the fifth edition of the Saraqusta Film Festival, ‘Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre. Discovering Pompeii and Herculaneum’, led by the director of the audiovisual, Silvia Pradas, the producer Javier Llovería, and the archaeologist Antonio Mostalac.
As for the afternoon screenings at the Cervantes cinema, RTVE’s period series ‘Valle salvaje’ (Wild Valley), part of Panorama Saraqusta, had to be canceled due to problems caused by the national power outage.
Saraqusta Film Festival is co-organized by the Zaragoza City Council and Cosmos Fan, with the support of the Government of Aragon as an institutional partner, the Ibercaja Foundation as the main partner, and Ibercaja, Carné Joven de Aragón, Aragón Alimentos, and Arafilmfest as collaborators.
TUESDAY 29 AGENDA
Tomorrow’s press conference, Tuesday, April 29 (10:00 a.m., Caesaraugusta Roman Theater Museum), will be attended, barring any last-minute changes due to the power outage affecting the peninsula, by Paco Ortiz, director of the documentary in competition ‘Antonio, el bailarín de España’ (Antonio, the dancer of Spain), and producer José Carlos de Isla, coinciding with International Dance Day. The feature film in competition, ‘Obraz’, will be attended by the director and producer, Nikola Vukcevic; the lead actor, Edin Rizvanolli; and the producer in Spain, Deborah Micheletti. Eduardo de la Cruz, director and producer of the Aragonese documentary of the day, ‘Lux sacra’, will also take part in the press conference, together with the author of the book, José Miguel Navarro.
A round table discussion (12:30 p.m., at the museum, open to the public until full capacity is reached) will analyze the visual effects of the series “Sin límites” (No Limits), led by Ana Revilla and Ignacio Lacosta from the Aragonese studio XReality. The fiction is set in August 1519, when 239 sailors, led by the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan, set sail from Seville for the Indies. Three years later, only 18 sailors returned on the only ship that survived the voyage, led by the Spanish sailor Juan Sebastián Elcano. An episode of the series will be screened as part of Panorama Saraqusta at 5:00 p.m. at the Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta Foundation.
Lux sacra is the Aragonese documentary that will be shown at 12:00 p.m. at the Caesaraugusta Theater Museum. Directed by Eduardo de la Cruz, it shows the magic and eloquence of sunlight, explaining its power and symbolism as a narrative used by all cultures.
As for the competition screenings, the documentary that will be shown at 7:00 p.m. at Fundación Ibercaja Patio de la Infanta will be ‘Antonio, el bailarín de España’ (Antonio, the dancer of Spain), directed by Paco Ortiz, and the feature film of the day (at 9:00 p.m. at the Cervantes cinema) will be ‘Obraz’, by Nikola Vukcevic. Actor Álvaro Díaz Morales will serve as host.
Tickets for all Saraqusta Film Festival screenings and the closing gala are available through the festival’s official website, saraqustafilmfestival.com.