Spain in the spotlight of the Film Fest Gent festival

FOR ITS 46TH EDITION, WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE FROM 8 TO 18 OCTOBER, FILM FEST GENT IS BRINGING THE SPANISH CINEMATOGRAPHIC SPHERE TO GHENT, TRADiTIONALLY WITH MUCH EMPHASIS ON SOUNDTRACKS. ACTRESS ROSSY DE PALMA, THE MUSE OF ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS SPANISH DIRECTORS - PEDRO ALMODOVAR - IS THE FACE OF THE CAMPAIGN. A HUNDRED OR SO DAYS PRIOR TO THE OPENING, FILM FEST GENT WILL DISCLOSE THE FIRST FILM TITLES AND OTHER NEW NAMES WILL BE REVEALED FOR VIDEODROOM, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE VOORUIT CULTURAL CENTRE.

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Rossy de Palma, the star actress and one of the main sources of inspiration for Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, will lend her Picasso-like face for the 2019 Film Fest Gent festival poster. Under Almodóvar’s direction, who produced a striking semi-autobiographical narrative (Dolor y gloria) this year, she was involved in many films, among which La Ley del deseo (Law Of Desire) (1987), Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) (1988), ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) (1990) and Kika (1993).

Spain, breaking taboos

“The main reason for putting Spanish cinema in the spotlight is because so few Spanish films are shown in Belgian cinemas. Thus, we are generally missing occasions to follow what is going on in one of the most prominent countries in Europe from a filmmaking point of view”, said Wim De Witte, programme director of Film Fest Gent.

Film Fest Gent 2019 prepared a retrospective on the work of several Spanish cinema masters. Firstly, tribute will be paid to Spanish director Agustí Villaronga in October. Villaronga’s fame is first and foremost due to his recurring fascination for sadistic characters. Film-lovers will be able to enjoy an overview of his over 40-year long career, including his controversial début as a film-maker, Tras el Cristal (In A Glass Cage) (1986).



Moreover, through a unique programme, the festival is presenting the works of Spanish artists who broke taboos in their films: Spanish-Mexican director Luis Buñuel, who captured surrealism on celluloid, and Carlos Saura, whose poignant films on dance have left their mark on our visual memory. Further films from the Spanish archives of Victor Erice, Alejandro Amenábar and Pedro Almodóvar complete this list.



“As part of the festival retrospective, we are showing tantalising, transgressive and anarchistic works, a trait of Spanish cinema, through a selection of progressive films which helped deconstructing sacred grounds during and after the Francoist dictatorship. Patrick Duynslaegher, the curator of the retrospective and former artistic director of Film Fest Gent, declared: “Time has come for a retrospective".



On top of these safe bets, works from new Spanish cinema talents will be shown too, among whom Carlos Marques-Marcet, Neus Ballús, Elena Martin and Gabriel Velázquez.

First film titles

We are already revealing a few films which have been selected for the next festival: Ghost Tropic by Bas Devos, the Brussels director who managed to complete two films within the same year and presented them both in Berlin and in Cannes. Likewise for Monos by Colombian film-maker Alejandro Landes on the explosive topic of children in the military, as well as Il Traditore by Marco Bellocchio, which tells the real story of Tommaso Buscetta, head of the Sicilian mafia and who was the first person to violate omerta.

For its big screen première, The Twelve, on a Belgian Court of Assizes popular jury will be shown as part of the ‘Serial Madness’ section. The series is a production of Eyeworks and één, written by Bert Van Dael and Sanne Nuyens and shot by newbie Wouter Bouvijn. The TV series has already won the award for best scenario at ‘Canneseries’, the international fiction series festival. This fascinating fiction series, which will be presented in the autumn, comes with an impressive cast: Maaike Cafmeyer, Josse De Pauw, Mieke De Groote, Johan Heldenbergh, Lynn Van Royen, Tom Vermeir, Charlotte De Bruyne, Zouzou Ben Chikha, Maaike Neuville, Titus De Voogdt, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Sara Vertongen etc.

The Film Fest Gent festival’s trademark is the internationally recognised annual World Soundtrack Awards. Among the films bringing a musical touch this year, let’s mention A Dog Called Money, a documentary on P.J. Harvey by Seamus Murphy, and Amazing Grace, a concert film featuring original 1972 musical recordings of young Aretha Franklin by Allan Elliott and Sydney Pollack.

New Videodroom names

After a successful 2018 edition, the Vooruit and the Film Fest Gent festival will be collaborating closely again for ten days. All throughout the festival, VIDEODROOM will take place in the Vooruit. Viewers can expect to see a series of concerts during which prominent musicians, oscillating between various genres, will be playing new film compositions live. These will be reinterpreting existing or completely new partitions and unique improvisations.

A new very promising name, CURL, is a collective operating in London with the trio Brother May, Coby Sey and Mica Levi - known as Micachu - in command. This gem of the London Underground will play live during their short film, Mayonnaise, Corn on the Cob and My Car. Levi is known for her work with the band The Shapes (now Good Sad Happy Happy Bad) and soundtracks for Under the Skin (2013) and Jackie (2016), both shown at Film Fest Gent in 2016. For the soundtrack of this latter film, she was the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar in nearly 20 years.

Dutch minimalist composer Jozef Van Wissem will make an appearance too. He has been collaborating with director Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down By Law (1986) and Broken Flowers (2005)), released four albums and won a Cannes Soundtrack Award for the soundrack of Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). During this new edition of VIDEODROOM, Van Wissem will be presenting his last project to the festival: a live partition to the splendid silent film The Dying Swan (1917) by Russian director Evgueni Bauer.

Eventually, on VIDEODROOM, Camae Ayewa, known as Moor Mother, will be presenting her new project for a Belgian première: The Great Bailout, which is a vivid plea in which performance and projection are inextricably linked and for which she called upon the London Contemporary Orchestra, who gave colours to - among others - prominent films like There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017) by Paul Thomas Anderson.



On top of the afore-mentioned films, Alien (the 40-year old legendary science-fiction classic) and Salomé (the filmed adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s controversial eponymous play) will be put to music during VIDEODROOM.

* The complete programme of Film Fest Gent 2019 will be announced on 19 September. The 46th Ghent Film Festival will take place between 8 and 18 October at Kinepolis Gent, Studio Skoop, Sphinx, Vooruit, KASKcinema and Capitole Gent.

** Important information: the contact person for Film Fest Gent changed. From now on, please contact Kim Verthé for all press- and communication-related issues (kim@filmfestival.be and +32 494 33 42 84). Accreditation requests can be introduced from 1 August.

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