The “official section” of FICBUEU will show the best and most recent author cinema with 29 short films from 18 countries.

16.08.24. BUEU. The International Film Festival of Bueu, the FICBUEU, will discover to its spectators in its seventeenth edition a total of 29 short films of the best and most innovative auteur cinema made during the last year around the world. Between September 6th and 14th, the “Official Section” of the contest will show to the public films of different genres (fiction, animation, documentary…) from 18 countries: from Brazil, Lithuania, United States, Philippines, Portugal or Belgium to Lebanon, Estonia, Andorra, Italy, Germany or Canada, passing through Czech Republic, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, France and Spain, represented by half a dozen short films. 

Premieres in Spain and Galicia

The selection made by FICBUEU 2024 is also a unique opportunity to get to know the latest and most interesting film proposals that are being developed internationally in the short film format. Thus, almost half of the films in competition at the festival (13 shorts) are premieres in Spain and another 11 films will be screened for the first time in Galicia. Most of the films have been nominated and awarded in recent months at prestigious film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Annecy, Chicago, Locarno or South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas (USA).

Along with the official competition category, there are other competitive sections at FICBUEU 2024. These are “Descubertas” and “GZ_00”, which will allow to see what the new generations of filmmakers are doing, both in Galicia and in the rest of the world, and “Escuelas de Cine” and “Centros de Enseñanza”, which will bring the festival’s audience pieces created by the incipient cinematographic quarry. Among the four categories, about twenty short films will be screened.

Beyond the screenings

FICBUEU 2024 will once again invite the public to participate in different activities related to the seventh art. In addition to the colloquiums with filmmakers of some of the films selected for the competition, on Saturday, September 7, the “Xornadas Cinematográficas” will be held. The festival includes them in its program for the third consecutive year as a space for reflection on cinema. In this seventeenth edition they will address their relationship with politics. There will be a masterclass by Professor of Political Philosophy Camil Ungureanu, followed by a conversation on the Holocaust and World War II – the most represented historical and political event in cinema – between film critics and programmers Belit Lago and Daniela Urzola; an online round table with part of the team of the podcast “La escóbula de la Brújula” about the use of cinema as an art and propaganda tool; and a meeting with director Jaime Rosales (Petra, Girasoles silvestres) to analyze the cinema of the last 25 years through key themes such as the triumph of dystopia, the effects of technology or climate emergency. The day will end with the screening of the film The Conversation, made in 1974 by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gene Hackman and John Cazale and whose plot revolves around eavesdropping as a method of espionage.

Another scheduled activity is the meeting with the public on Sunday, September 8 (12:00 noon) between the filmmaker Rodrigo Cortés, the best-selling writer Juan Gómez-Jurado and the screenwriter and communicator Arturo González-Campos, members of two of the most interesting cultural podcasts broadcast in Spain, “Todopododerosos” and “Aquí hay dragones”. They will talk about the impact of the change brought about by the arrival of sound in cinema. That same afternoon, the three will sign books at an event that will be free of charge after collecting the corresponding invitation at the box office. Passes will be available during the morning of Sunday 8 and until the start of the event.

Notebook #5 for Jonas Mekas and his experimental cinema

The participation of seventh art and audiovisual specialists is completed by the meeting that the public of FICBUEU will have with professor Nieves Febrer. She is the author of the festival’s Notebook #5, which reviews the figure of Jonas Mekas, experimental filmmaker, cultural agitator and father of American avant-garde cinema. She will present it on Saturday, September 14. The festival will also dedicate to Mekas the “Retrospective” section, in which eight of his short films will be screened.

On the same day, September 14, the FICBUEU 2024 awards will be presented, including the Cinema Galego Award, given to Vigo actress María Vázquez in recognition of her career and her contribution to Galician and national cinema. From Monday, September 16, with the MINIFIC, the children’s activities, the screenings for schools in the area of Bueu and the family short film session will return.