Sitges Participates in Ventana Cinéfila, Bringing Cinema Closer to More Than 200,000 Viewers

Within the framework of the Huelva Film Festival, this Thursday there was a meeting of Profestivales21, a professional coordinator formed by the Seville, Malaga and Huelva festivals, the Valladolid International Film Week (Seminci) and recently joined by Sitges. 

The participants in the meeting were Mònica Garcia i Massagué, General Director of the Sitges-International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia Foundation; Jose Luis Cienfuegos, Director of the Seville Film Festival; Javier Angulo, Director of Seminci; Juan Antonio Vigar, Director of the Malaga Film Festival; and Manuel H. Martin, Director of the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival. The meeting served to evaluate all the activities that have been carried out since the coordinator was created in 2020. In addition, the festival directors discussed future projects, such as the Creation Laboratory that will be launched in 2022.

One of the Profestivales21 coordinator's first joint activities is Ventana Cinéfila (Cinephile Window), a groundbreaking educational project in Spain, which began on October 23rd. This activity, promoted by the Seville, Seminci, Malaga and Huelva festivals, in collaboration with Filmin, involves the participation of primary and secondary schools. Although it ends on November 23rd, so far it has a positive balance of 209,134 viewers. A total of 943 schools and 1,475 teachers from Andalusia and Castilla y León participated in the activity.

The purpose of the Ventana Cinéfila project is to bring cinema to educational centers with a common goal: the cinematic training of future viewers to broaden their social outlook and aesthetic sensibility through recently produced European and Latin American films. Over the Filmin platform, Ventana Cinéfila makes a selection of twenty films available to schools: eight feature length films and 14 short films. These are productions that address, in their storylines, issues of great social relevance such as sexual and family diversity, the challenge of immigration and social integration, environmental development and the climate emergency or artistic creation, among other topics. 

Among the 22 programmed films, there are five animated movies. In addition, it is important to note that several of these productions have won awards at international festivals and have received the backing of specialized critics.

Feature films:

•  ‘Ruben Brandt, Collector’, by Milorad Krstic (Hungary)
•  ‘Float Like a Butterfly’, by Carmel Winters (Ireland)
•  ‘Just Charlie’, by Rebekah Fortune (United Kingdom)
• ‘Strike’, by Trevor Hardy (United Kingdom).
• ‘La melodie’, by Mohamed Rachid Hami (France)
• ‘Boxi and the Lost Treasure’, by Béla Klingl (Hungary)
• ‘Jim Button and Luke The Engine Driver’, by Dennis Gansel (Germany)
• ‘Misión H20’, by Álvaro Cáceres (Venezuela)

Short films:

• ECOSYSTEM IN SHORT (7 AND OLDER):
  • ‘Flight to Earth’, by Ignacio Rodó (Spain)
  • ‘Nimbus’: El Cazador de Nubes, by Marco Nick (Brazil)
  • ‘El pájaro cubo’, by Jorge Alberto Vega Rivera (Colombia)
• ECOSYSTEM IN SHORT (3 AND OLDER):
  • ‘El árbol ya fue plantado’, by Irene Blei (Argentina)
  • ‘The Little Cousteau’, by Jakub Kouril (Czech Republic)
  • ‘Ginko’, (several directors) (France)
  • ‘Migrants’ (several directors) (Czech Republic)
  • ‘Un lynx dans la ville’, by Nina Bisiarina (France/Switzerland)
  • ‘Le dernier jour d´automne’, by Marjorlaine Perreten (Switzerland/Belgium/France)
• MORAL LESSON (7 AND OLDER):
  • ‘The Kite’, by Martin Smatana (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Poland)
  • ‘Lea salvaje’, by María Teresa Salcedo Montero (Colombia)
  • ‘028’ (several directors) (France)
  • ‘Grand loup and petit loup’, by Rémi Durin (Belgium/France):
  • ‘Reflejo’, by Juan Carlos Mostaza (Spain)

The Ventana Cinéfila project is reinforced in classrooms with educational guides and the development of the 'Small Format Ideas' initiative, divided into three areas of work, with interventions using a format of short clips by film professionals in film editing, directing and music in film. 

The purpose of Profestivales21 is the analysis and monitoring of the different scenarios to achieve greater protection and recognition of film festivals, which are benchmarks in the film industry.