As every year, the Gijón International Film Festival includes a wide range of complementary activities, including exhibitions, talks, book presentations and meetings with filmmakers and protagonists of the event, which will also be distributed throughout the different venues and collaborating spaces of the FICX: Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, Antigua Escuela de Comercio, Teatro Jovellanos, Teatro de la Laboral, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Espaciu Astragal del Conseyu de la Mocedá de Xixón, Galería Bea Villamarín, Café librería Toma 3, Bar La Plaza and sala RESET.
Four exhibitions join the Complementary Activities of the 61st FICX
FICX presents the exhibition Goya, precursor of the Lumière brothers, in collaboration with the Fundación Municipal de Cultura. This is a key journey to understand the influence of one of the most important painters in history on the world of cinema. Directors such as Carlos Saura, Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein and Stanley Kubrick used the artist’s work as a reference in their films. More than 70 posters and 4 audiovisuals illustrate the legacy of the Spanish painter and engraver in the seventh art. The exhibition, which can be seen in Room 1 of the Antiguo Instituto Cultural Centre from Thursday 16 to Sunday 26 November, will have a guided tour by Alberto Olivar, curator of the exhibition, on Wednesday 22 November at 19:00.
Goya, precursor de los hermanos Lumière
The Festival also invites you to visit the exhibition Flashing FICX from 15 to 30 November at the Espaciu Astragal del Conseyu de Mocedá de Xixón. This continuation of the 2019 edition, exhibits the photographs taken by the students of the CIFP of Communication, Image and Sound of Langreo (CISLAN), of the different activities of the FICX. The selection of snapshots aims to capture the experience of the students throughout the last editions of the event.
During FICX, visitors will also be able to enjoy the exhibition Motores del clima organised by LABoral Centro de Creación Industrial: an exploration, through art, of time and climate as complex systems, objects of observation and control, and forms of lived experience. The exhibition includes a thematic route specially curated for the 61st edition of FICX, with nine films of different styles, representative of contemporary video practice.
In addition, the Bea Villamarín gallery offers the possibility of discovering Otarter, by Rafa Rollón, an exhibition whose intention is to make visible hidden codes of cinematographic images, by representing manipulated instants of films.
Readings to broaden our vision
As every year, FICX gives a significant space to books. In this edition, the Festival will have five presentations by its authors; the first four will take place, on different days, in the cultural space of the Toma 3 bookshop café at 17:30.
The film critic and director of SensaCine, Alejandro G. Calvo, will present on Saturday 18 November Una película para cada año de tu vida (Ediciones Temas), a first book that, with clear and elegant prose, takes us on a filmic journey that invites us to understand why cinema and life always go hand in hand.
On Tuesday 21, Adrián Sánchez will talk about Oculto en Gran Bretaña: un siglo de horror, ciencia-ficción y fantasía (Kane Ediciones), an essay in which he analyses how British cinema cultivated, throughout the 20th century, a unique idea of these three related genres.
José Riveiro, from Gijón, who also directed the film La vida a través de Vega, screened in the Esbilla Section – Equí y n’otru tiempo, presents the book El otro cine español. Un recorrido por lo más inhóspito de nuestro cine (Pelicacometro Books). In it, he offers a complete review of all kinds of lost, hidden, disastrous, memorable and forgotten films of our cinema. The meeting will take place on Wednesday 22nd and will be moderated by Jesús Palacios, writer and film critic, already a regular at FICX, who also signs the book’s prologue.
On Thursday 23rd, filmmaker and journalist Javier Tolentino will present the book Basilio Martín Patino (Editorial Cátedra), an essential work to get to know the great legacy of an exceptional director who created a “beautiful, independent cinema, full of humour and libertarian ideals that he never gave up”.
At the Antiguo Instituto Cultural Centre on Friday 24 November at 6 p.m., the Festival, in collaboration with the Tertulia Feminista les Comadresviolenc, will be attended by María Ángeles García, author of Vidas de mujer que el cine cuenta (Machado Libros), a book divided into two parts; In the first, she traces the evolution of female characters throughout the history of cinema, who have gone from being mere objects to gradually acquiring a leading role, and in the second, she compares the careers of women with historical weight with their portrayal on the big screen.
An invitation to evoke the image through sound
FICX collaborates with the Sociedad Filarmónica de Gijón to offer the soundtrack concert Proyecto Sonora: Escuchar para ver. On this occasion, the string quartet invites us to evoke cinema and opens a door to the labyrinth of imagination and the synaesthesia of image and sound. Listening is presented as a revolutionary act that prompts us to rethink reality. Proyecto Sonora is inspired, for this concert, by the work of the Czech director Jan Švankmajer, an expert in sound distortion effects, who is extremely present in sound in his filmography. Its use is not an element of lesser importance in relation to the image, quite the contrary. It is a direct vehicle to teach us to look. As he said: “to see, close your eyes”. The concert will take place at the Teatro de la Laboral, on Sunday 19 November at 19:00.
Proyecto Sonora: Escuchar para ver
Talks and film meetings
In addition to the meetings with filmmakers after the screenings, the Festival completes its offer with several talks and conferences. Dr. Mar Fernández, musicologist and vice-president of the Gijón Philharmonic Society, will talk about the symbiosis between music and cinema under the title Los clásicos van al cine. ¿Por qué? ¿Para qué? The meeting, organised in collaboration with the Taller de Músicos de la Fundación Municipal de Cultural and the Ateneo Jovellanos de Gijón, will take place on Saturday 18 November at 19:00 in the Salón de Actos of the Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto.
The Asociación Acción! de Directores y Directoras del cine español collaborates with the Festival by awarding a prize and organising El Oficio de dirigir, a dialogue on the speciality of film directing with the participation of filmmakers Javier Tolentino, Azucena de la Fuente, Carmen Córdoba and Ramón Lluís Bande. The talk will take place in Toma 3 on Friday 24 November at 18:00.
Under the title Espacios libres de violencias sexuales en la industria audiovisual. Iniciativas y retos; Montserrat Boix, delegate for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at RTVE, and Virginia Yagüe, scriptwriter, producer and writer, will give a talk on the changes that have taken place in recent years in the social sanctioning of this type of violence. The meeting, organised by the Tertulia Feminista les Comadres, will be held in the Assembly Hall of the Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto on Friday 24 November at 19:00.
Screenings that complete the FICX programme
Three complementary screenings will also take place as part of the Festival’s complementary activities. Under the title Estamos de Cine, the students of the CIFP of Communication, Image and Sound of Langreo (CISLAN), will exhibit on Saturday 18 November at 19:00 hours in the School of Commerce, several audiovisual pieces produced and produced in the development of their academic activity.
It will also be possible to see Berde que te quiero ver, a documentary that follows a group of 16 adults with functional diversity as they embark on a transformative journey through a film workshop, directed by a team of filmmakers, artists and professionals in social education and psychology. A show that serves as an inspiration to promote real inclusion, empathy and open a new path in cinema. The screening of the film will be on Monday 20 November at 17:00 at the Teatro de la Laboral. After the presentation of the film, there will be a discussion with the audience and, at 19:00, A WAY TO B (Esbilla – Equí y n’otru tiempu) will be screened. The activity is organised by the collective BERDE, an art and social transformation project promoted in Asturias with the aim of creating a space for expression through art for people with Functional Diversity.
Berde que te quiero ver
FICX will also feature a screening of Aún es tiempo de feminismo, by Towanda Rebels, a duo of Spanish activists, artists, writers and feminists formed by Zua Méndez and Teresa Lozano. The film features women lawyers, politicians, philosophers and activists in the struggle for women’s rights who, through their analysis, provide tools to better understand the current moment of Spanish feminism. It will be shown on Monday 20 November at 7 p.m. at the Antigua Escuela de Comercio in collaboration with the Directorate General for Equality between women and men.
Aún es tiempo de feminismo, by Towanda Rebels
The three screenings are free entry until full capacity is reached.
FICX Night: 24 Hour Party People
On Saturday 18th, Toma 3 will host the Vinyl Session by The Phantom Jvcórdoba SESIÓN DJ and then the star of the SensaCine networks, Alex G. Calvo, returns to Cimavilla to offer his now legendary DJ set in the unique venue of La Plaza. Moreover, it will be inaugurated just before the RESET Festival, a new meeting space where the daily parties will be held after the screenings and which will feature, in addition to a Karoke Party, sessions by Kresy, La viuda de Angelín, Isaac Gallo, Helios Amor, Tigre y Diamante DJ set, Nanara’s Selection and a final party by Bárbaro Chico.
