The first FICBUEU Residence will bring together four filmmakers in Ons to develop their projects with Isabel Peña, scriptwriter of «As bestas»

BUEU. Pontevedra. Spain. 11.08.2023. FICBUEU, which every year showcases the best original cinema and the main film trends in short format, presented this morning its programme of residencies for filmmakers in Ons. This is a training project created to give impetus to new audiovisual projects.

Prestigious professionals advise filmmakers on the creation of new films that are still in the development phase. The programme, which the Festival began working on two years ago, has the support of the Secretaría Xeral da Igualdade and the Axencia Galega de Industrias Culturais (AGADIC). «The fact that the residency is also for short films is a differential value, because we realised that there is practically nothing similar in Spain», said María Ruiz-Falcó, co-director of FICBUEU, who also wanted to thank the public for the good reception of the event, which will continue with its programme until the 23rd.

In this first FICBUEU Residency, which will take place from 9 to 15 October in Ons, four projects have been selected from among 122 received from all over Spain, a third of them from Galicia. Their tutor will be Isabel Peña (Zaragoza, 1983), scriptwriter of films such as As bestas and El reino –with which she won two Goyas–, Stockholm or Que Dios nos perdone and series such as Antidisturbios. For María Ruiz-Falcó, «it is a luxury to open the programme with her, to be able to count on a woman with her career and her very high professional quality».

Quality and variety of projects

To select the projects, the FICBUEU team made an initial choice of 15 candidates. Then, in collaboration with Isabel Peña herself, they selected the four finalist projects: two directors, Alicia Úbeda and Ángela Andrada, both from A Coruña, and two directors, Jordi Sanz, from Barcelona, and Pablo Vilas, from Tenerife. «We highly valued the author’s genuine vision and innovative narrative conception when it came to choosing. There are four very different projects, all of them very interesting and with high quality scripts», added Manuel Pena, also co-director of FICBUEU, about the works that are part of the programme.

World with «its own language»

Alicia Úbeda, who attended the presentation of the residency, will participate with Garabato, an autobiographical short film project about two sisters aged 14 and 7 who take care of an alcoholic mother. «I feel very lucky to be part of this programme and I love the fact that it’s about short films because they have a language of their own that must be valued», she said in her speech. For this director and scriptwriter from A Coruña, her story is «an inward look» that mixes autofiction and documentary and that «takes a traumatic experience to tell it again and make it less painful».

Avisa cuando llegues is the proposal by screenwriter Ángela Andrade, the story of a 21-year-old girl who wants to recover her life, overcome her fear and go out and have fun again six months after suffering a sexual assault. Jordi Sanz, meanwhile, was chosen for Sismes, a piece that explores memory and memories through a divorced woman who returns ten years later to the volcanic island where she spent her honeymoon and has an obsession with videotaping herself to recreate the images in which only her ex-husband appeared. Barranco sin fondo is the proposal that Pablo Vilas wants to develop to tell the story of a teenager who travels with a drone through the ravines near her home and finds a little goat that she wants to adopt.

The first FICBUEU Residence will allow the four finalists to improve the quality and viability of their ideas, contributing their vision, language and personal tone, as well as acquiring the necessary resources to obtain a multidisciplinary perspective of the production process. The methodology they will use will be based on personalised tutorials, specific training and joint practical activities (round tables and one-to-one meetings) that will encourage cooperation and value different perspectives. «The plan is for them to work hard to get the most out of their stay», said Manuel Pena.

In addition to Isabel Peña, the residents will also work with the scriptwriter and anthropologist Carmen Ávalos, who will address the script from a gender perspective; Pablo Lamosa, director of Cormorán VFX, who will delve into the resources aimed at improving the visual aspects of the projects; and the professor and researcher Elena Neira, who will present the new distribution channels for cinema.

The best project will be produced

At the end of the residency, one of the four script projects will be eligible to be produced by the Galician production company Nortecatro Cinema. «We were already doing scriptwriting classes and small filming courses, but we wanted to have a big, professional and complete programme to support the ideas from the beginning and with which we could see the results. That’s why we are going to try to make one of the projects a reality and close the circle», concluded Manuel Pena.