Blog: Festivals de cinéma

If that initially censored scene of Kubrick's Spartacus gives title to this blog entry, it is not because I want to discuss the benefits or supposed evils of homosexuality, but because it is common among the cinephile population to establish closed areas of enjoyment and interest. This one prefers the experimental cinema of Stan Brakhage, that one only sees Marvel movies, that one gets excited with the French melodramas of the 30s, the one beyond only sees film noir made in classic Hollywood. Yet, establishing these watertight compartments it is impossible to have a global, complete, broad vision of what cinema is.

Naturally you may like only oysters or only snails, but it is much more enriching to enjoy both knowing that they are different, and therefore being able to see with as much joy the science fiction made in Hollywood in the 50s and the essays of the Dziga Vertov Group in the 60s/70s, knowing that they are different things. And we should be thankful for that, because there is not one single type of cinema that has been possible in 120 years, and counting, of cinematographic history.

June 10 will mark the 41st anniversary of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s death at 37 years of age, an essential filmmaker who is seldom named now, and even less known, in another act of cinephile forgetfulness that is actually an act of basic ignorance.

If Fassbinder is essential it is because no one (or almost) like him was able to x-ray and show how human relationships are based on possession and the natural cruelty that possession entails, and he did so by creating films that were sometimes cruel, sometimes failed, but always stark, honest and lucid, like that impossible proof of love in In a Year with 13 Moons, or that imaginary happiness in Fox and His Friends. Perhaps the forgetfulness I mentioned above is due to the fact that the bulk of his filmography (an astonishing number of 44 works between feature films for cinema and television, some short films, some miniseries, some macroseries, all made in a time frame of just 15 years) can be described as melodramas, a genre reviled in our days for reasons that elude me, and that Fassbinder learned to love and practice by watching the very remarkable work of another forgotten master, Douglas Sirk. Or perhaps the cause of it is the fact that Fassbinder's work lacks the handbrake, the self-censoring and the sugar coating of contemporary drama.

Be that as it may, it is never a bad time, with or without an anniversary, to remember and celebrate the work of the Bavarian genius, and to declare (contrary to what the title of his first feature film affirms) that the love for Fassbinder's work can never be colder than death.

There has been a recurring debate about short films for years at festivals, professional meetings, round tables, markets, etc. It would be summarized in this question: why does the short film not receive the same recognition as the feature film? The problem with this question (most commonly asked by distributors, but not exclusively by them at all) is that it does not clarify what recognition it is talking about or who would have to carry it out. That is, it does not clarify to whom the question is addressed, so it is impossible to answer.

If we talk about short films as cinematographic works, we must remember that some of the great masters in the history of cinema have delivered great works in short format (Godard, Malle, Varda, Marker, Garrel ...). As a work of art, short film is already recognized throughout the world. But is it as an industrial product?

Following the logic of capitalism, a short film can never produce the same profit as a feature film (in fact, it is unusual for a short film to generate a profit), whether its budget is very large or very small, so as an industrial product it will never have the same recognition as a feature film, naturally, and it would be rather healthy to understand that these two perspectives are complementary and do not exclude one another.

Of all the cinema made under Franco's fascist regime, there are many things to throw into the sea tied with chains so that it never returns to the surface, and some other things (just a few) we can celebrate on, such as Berlanga's cinema. But while Berlanga's cinema is still alive today, there is a moment that represents the cinema of Francoism like no other, and that decades later is still remembered because it also represents what it was like to be a man in Franco’s regime. I am referring to the celebrated moment (in an atrocious film such as Atraco a las 3, by José María Forqué) in which José Luis López Vázquez declares himself "an admirer, a slave, a friend, a servant" (it happens more than once in the film).

Without genuflection, but on his knees, López Vázquez’ character represents several generations of men at the mercy of power, fame, feminine beauty understood as a platonic ideal, and who have a very evident exponent in El Fary when he spoke of the "soft man" without realizing he was also subjugated. The violence defended by people like El Fary only showed their impotence and in 2022 we are grateful because they are disappearing, although gender violence has not, sadly, been extinguished yet.

It is usual among Martin Scorsese fans (I am not one of them) to celebrate the vigor of his shots, the genius of his mise-en-scène, the vital energy that his films give off. But it is much less common to mention his collaborators as essential pieces of that Scorsese touch: despite my love for Paul Schrader’s work as a screenwriter and as a director (he is the author of the scripts of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), I think that the main responsible for the Scorsesian narration is Thelma Schoonmaker, almost exclusive editor of Scorsese since 1967 and responsible for both the bombastic rhythm of The Color of Money and creating some narrative sense in a film as poorly made as The Departed.


Schoonmaker has not worked alone for Scorsese, but almost, and it becomes so difficult to find in a film made by another director the continuation of the movement by cut (movement of the camera or the elements / people in the shot) that is so natural and frequent in the cinema of the filmmakers from New York, that one tends to think that Scorsese films for Schoonmaker, and that Schoonmaker determines the way he shoots.

It is well known that John Ford was an angry despot on his shooting sets, capable of savagely beating his main actors, of publicly humiliating his brother, of throwing his actresses into a swimming pool. An unrepentant alcoholic, he exercised tyrannical violence with the malice of one who knows that he has at his disposal the necessary power to exercise it.

I don't think we can and should not excuse John Ford for those behaviors, neither in the 30s/40/50s nor now in 2022. But neither can we ignore them, as if they were acceptable, nor cancel John Ford entirely, as if we hope that great creators should not have serious character flaws. What we can do is assume the natural imperfection of the human condition, accept John Ford as a great creator with terrible flaws that should never be silenced, and appreciate his films to a greater or lesser extent. It's easy to say, very hard to do.

Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest "What's past is prologue" implying that there is a natural continuity in history and that the present is a direct consequence of immediately preceding historical conditions.


What Shakespeare could not imagine is that in our time there would be a current within the film and TV narrative (especially in the fantastic variant) in which the past is prologue and the present... is also prologue, as if a production seeks to highlight what will happen in an indeterminate future instead of what it is trying to tell, as if what really matters is what it shows and not what it tells, as if the creators cared more about drawing a map than inhabiting it. Thus, we find (to use a very recent example) the 1st season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, in which everything is presentation, introduction, prologue, in which the narration doesn’t seem to have a central interest for its authors, so that everything refers us to a future that is actually in the past, in the film trilogy Peter Jackson made 20 years ago.

My favorite Jean-Luc Godard film is not any of his feature films, but a small 11-minute essay entitled Lettre à Freddy Buache (Letter to Freddy Buache, 1981). In that film, Godard wonders, quoting Wittgenstein, whether "we have made a mistake by calling blue green." And in the search for that conceptual error he will continue to make films all his life, just as Alain Tanner sought the error of time that passes in Dans la ville blanche, or Louis Malle sought the error of individuality in Le feu follet, or Eric Rohmer sought the error of geometric thinking in Ma nuit chez Maud.

Seeking imperfection and error, these masters, among others, have moved away from formal and discursive perfection to find a deeper understanding of the world, and that is a debt we can never pay them back. With the deaths of Godard and Tanner just 3 days ago I have been overwhelmed by a sense of orphanhood, perhaps because the history of cinema is a cemetery. But it is one inhabited by the most beautiful corpses that speak ghostly to us day after day. Thus, Godard and Tanner have found the error of death.

The certainty of the director about "their film", "their work" is an imperative necessity, because in a film crew someone has to be sure (or has to look like they are) of the direction in which the project has to go. But being the leader of the peloton doesn't mean the director can do the race alone. We find many examples in the history of cinema (from Josef von Sternberg to Michael Cimino, from John Ford to Stanley Kubrick) of self-appointed tyrants who enjoyed treating their team as slaves to be mistreated daily, constantly. Fortunately, there are many cases that show the opposite: filmmakers trying to create a pleasant work environment that one wants to go to, rather than one from which we want to escape.


Of course, there is also a minority of directors who film in man-orchestra mode. Directors capable of occupying all fields in a film crew. Literally, a one-person film crew. It does not seem that they create much industry (surely, they do not create any jobs), but their status as sniper-filmmakers is usually accompanied by a meager or directly non-existent budget to make their films, and that does not guarantee full creative freedom, but permanent restrictions that demand control and rigor.

Neither money (the budget) gives happiness, nor its absence implies being able to do whatever we want.

Not many years ago the great Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán gave a lecture in Madrid on documentary cinema. As I have been told (I was not present), an attendee told him that she really wanted to make documentaries but did not know what to make them about. Pato Guzmán (maybe somewhat jokingly) answered her with a question, whether she had a cat, and seeing that this was the case, he added "well, you already have what to do it about. Make a documentary about your cat." The next question, which I don't know whether it was asked by anybody, would be "I have a cat, but what do I say about my cat?"


The confusion between narration and discourse is as difficult to notice as it is old. The cat in this example would help us to build a narrative, but the "what do I say? issue would be the center of the film's discourse. And the what do I say? problem is a much more suffocating one than the what film? Problem is, because it requires a degree of self-critical awareness that is not easy to exercise, and that in most cases is a heavy burden that drowns the creative drive. However, it is necessary to find an answer to the what do I say? Question to understand the cinema that one makes, and to be able to find new forms to develop it.

Ultimately, it's not very difficult to find films the directors of which know what they're narrating, but it's much less easy to find films where the director knows what they're saying.

A few days ago I wondered, while watching a terrible film by Sidney Lumet, what is cinema useful for. While as an industrial product the function of a film is to increase the patrimony of the producers, as a work of art its function is the same as that of any other work of art: to exercise critical awareness and at the same time depicting the zeitgeist of the time in which it is created. And, having said that, we still do not know what cinema is useful for, because the functions enunciated cover only a part of the meanings that the cinematographic fact contains.

Thus, there is a much wider field to cover in order to know what cinema is useful for, but as filmmakers that is one of the least relevant parts of the creative process that culminates in a film. And it is probably an insufferable burden when we need instinct rather than rational intermediation to start that creative process. Do I need to know what cinema is for when I write a script, am in the middle of a shoot or am editing my film? No, I don't need it. I just need to know what I want my film to be useful for, what I hope it will be useful for, and accept with fortitude and honesty that, to quote the master Paul Schrader, "most times a film succeeds for the wrong reasons."

So, if only filmmakers need to know what our film is useful for in that process of 3 different kinds of writing (not at all related to Spielberg): script writing, shooting and editing, which is a process of creation but also one of analysis and self-criticism, we will have to accept that in such process, as in the process of living and dying, we are completely alone.

Víctor M. Muñóz

It is traditional, and to some extent reasonable, to hear the pseudo-cinephile comment “I can’t understand anything Marlon Brando says” Or Mario Casas, to use two names that come to mind when you think of actors "who can never be understood when they speak". it is true that neither of them is a vocalization specialist, but at least in their respective careers they always worked with professional sound teams.

I am surprised (and, in a sense, excited) to see how today's short film maker has at their disposal all kinds of advanced technologies to shoot without any budget (pocket cameras, or simply mobile phones, that shoot in 4K, editing applications that you can use on a laptop, etc.). But, when it comes to recording sound, we commission it to our neighbor’s cousin, or to the one with a hangover, or we choose to use the direct sound that we have not bothered to configure in the camera. If we have actors on set with the diction of Brando or Casas, it is a perfect storm that guarantees that our short film... will be understood by no one.

Of course, is not only the short film makers that can be blamed. While it is perfectly possible to find all kinds of express workshops that teach you the rudiments of shooting with a team, or how to start understanding the basis of film photography, or what are the basics of editing and how to start using the most professional editing applications in a few weeks or months, the equivalent sound courses are always long (1 school year at least) or outright non-existent.

When it comes to short film, sound matters to very few people. And we forget that even if we work with actors with John Gielgud’s impeccable diction, if the sound is secondary in the film crew, he will not be understood either.

Víctor M. Muñóz

We have become accustomed in our daily lives to claiming that size matters. In the affective, the sexual, the family, the socioeconomic levels, we have become accustomed to affirming that more is better, that what is good is big. We also apply it in the cinematographic field, but what nobody seems to be clear about, in the event that size actually matters, is, the size of what?

Applying this common place to cinema, perhaps what we should determine is whether we refer to the $ 356 million it cost to produce Avengers Endgame (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2019), or the almost 5 hours that lasts the monumental and memorable The Memory of Justice (Marcel Ophüls, 1976), or how immensely moving is the expressive dryness of Le feu follet (Luis Malle, 1963), or the playful polysemy of Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnès Varda, 2000). So, the size of what?



The pandemic that has ravaged the world for more than a year and a half has left us with far fewer vital options than we had, and film production has been no exception. Mandatory confinement, the impossibility of traveling or the prolonged disappearance of group meetings have meant a huge halt in the industry that is not yet completely resolved. But it has also been a challenge for directors that many have not even seen but that some have decided to assume with the courage that characterises genuine creators: for example, Jerzy Skolimowski, at 82 years old, made a beautiful short film (To nie my / It's Not Us, 2020) about the several months long isolation period he spent with his wife on an Italian island where he was going to shoot his next feature film. And we have also had the example of numerous short filmmakers, veterans and novices, who have filmed in their homes, on their rooftops, on their balconies, with better or worse luck, stories that represented a testimony of loneliness and the lack of resources, true, but also of their ability to overcome the context and deliver significant works. We asked and wondered, the size of what?


There are no magic formulas to create works in film (although it is true that, unfortunately, there are more formulas than genuine creative drives), but it is perfectly possible to make a fiction short film about the First World War on your balcony with chopsticks, or a musical-animated short film in the bathroom with pistachios, or a short documentary about your cat's life and its relationship with the microwave. Here I must explain as a reference that, although he has created films such as the series of Histoire(s) du cinéma (which in total should last about 5 or 6 hours), my favorite film of a genius like Jean-Luc Godard is a wonderful short film (Lettre à Freddy Buache, 1982) of just 11 minutes in length in which, halfway between a film essay and a traditional documentary, he dissects with an axe the obligations and ambitions of a filmmaker. The restrictions we have suffered and partially continue to suffer have again taught us an old and valuable lesson: the relevance of the films we create is determined by the size of our genius and our ingenuity. That's what matters.

Víctor M. Muñóz

Submit your film before August, 31st to the 23rd Soria International Short Film Fest



Since 1998, the Soria International Short Film Fest (SOIFF) promotes the short film as a means of audiovisual expression, contributing to its recognition, dissemination and valuing it as an essential means of transmitting culture and an educational weapon. Considering it at all times CINEMA in capital letters and taking this format as essentially and basically a part of CINEMA.



In XXII edition, distributes 19,000 € in prizes. In addition, the festival will cover the costs of accommodation and part of the meals to the directors of the selected short films to attend the festival.



Goya Awards® Qualifying Festival: Since 2016 the festival is AIC (Agency for the Industry of Short Films) approved and is an official festival in the short film shortlist for the Goya® Awards.

Don't hesitate, if you have a short film produced after January 1st, 2020 and less than 30 minutes long, send it before August 31st and participate!

Curtas do Rio de Janeiro International Festival’s call for entries open until August 7



Last week to register your short film to the Short Film Festival – Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, exclusively dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of short-length audiovisual works. The Festival screens films produced in digital format, with a maximum length of 30 minutes, and is both competitive and informative. The program of the 2021 edition of the Festival will be made up of: International Competition, National Competition, Latin-American Panorama, and Special Programs.


Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its huge impact on the Brazilian cultural sector and funding models, Festival Curta Cinema 2021 will take place exclusively at the Festhome TV digital streaming platform.

Qualifier for the Academy Awards ® and the BAFTA and Goya Awards: The first Brazilian festival to qualify its winners for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, the festival qualify the winners of its Grand Prix to enter the competition for a BAFTA and Goya nomination, according to the rules of each institution.

Registration is open only up to August 7, don't leave it for the last minute!

63rd ZINEBI – Bilbao International Documentary and Short Film Festival is open for entries, exclusively on Festhome!



Created in 1959, the International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao (ZINEBI) has won its place as one of the top international festivals, the programming of which (documentary, animation and fiction) is the main symbol of its identity. Meticulous and thorough international competition sections, extremely free and committed cinema that is a real novelty for the audience and helps to build critical thought in the midst of the cultural complexity of contemporary artistic expression.


For its Official Section, the Festival accepts before the 25th of July, fiction, animation and documentary films lasting no longer than 30 minutes, and produced after the 1st of January 2020. In turn, its Official Section – ZIFF-ZIENBI First Film International Competition is open until the 12th of September to opera prima feature films, lasting over 60 minutes, which have not been premiered in the Spanish State and were made in 2021.


Among the festival guests, international judges or awarded authors, great names can be found, such as Roman Polanski, Marco Bellocchio, Jean Rouch, Basilio M. Patino, Julio Medem or Carlos Saura.

OSCAR®, EFA, BAFTA AND GOYA AWARDS QUALIFYING FESTIVAL: Zinebi is accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifier for the Oscars® and also a qualifying festival for the Goya Awards, and for British short films for the BAFTAs. As well, is the only festival in Spain to select a candidate for the European Film Academy (EFA) Awards in the Best Short Film category.

Every year since 1974, ZINEBI has been recognised by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) as one of only five Class A festivals of the world in the short film and documentary category, along with Tampere (Finland), Oberhausen (Germany), Krakow (Poland) and St. Petersburg (Russia).

Zinebi's submissions can ONLY be made through Festhome!

Oscar and Méliès Awards qualifier SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, exclusively in Festhome



The Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is a competitive festival, speci- alizing in fantastic genre, festival in accordance with the regulations established by the FIAPF. The festival accepts feature films, short films (live-action or animated of less than 30 minutes) and teaser/trailers (less than 10 minutes).


The 54th Sitges will be showcasing the widest range of trends in genre films, through the multitude of styles and visions that coexist in today's panorama. In addition, WomanInFan, has been created with the aim of helping to improve the becoming more and more noticeable and brilliant, presence of female creators in the fantastic film industry since statistics place them at a clear disadvantage.



Qualifier for the Academy Awards®, Méliès and Goya: Those shorts winning the awards for «Best Short Film» in the Official Fantàstic Selection and «Best Short Film» in the Anima’t section will automatically be taken into consideration by the Selection Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood for the Oscar® Awards. And the best European fantastic genre feature film and short will be elegible for the Méliès d’Or Award, organized by the EFFFF (European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation).

Sitges is a competitive festival in accordance with the regulations established by the FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations).


Submissions close on JULY 30th and can ONLY be made through Festhome!

Last days to submit your short film to Cine Lebu International Film Festival



Cine Lebu International Film Festival has been contributing to culture and arts for 21 years, enhancing training, education and audiences. Thus becoming one of the main platforms for the dissemination of new talent in the global film industry. In addition, in its programming there is always room to encourage children to love cinema.



Being one of the most important film festivals in Chile, it has spread abroad with sub-branches in Argentina, Spain, Cuba and Guatemala, keeping always the goal to offer Chilean and foreign filmmakers a window for dissemination, marketing, and distribution of short films.



The only Oscars® awards qualifying short film festival from the Southern Cone: The winning short films in the International Fiction, Regional Fiction and International Animation categories will become part of the shortlist from which will come the short films that will compete for the award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Hollywood.

Submissions HAVE NO ENTRY FEES and can be made UNTIL NOVEMBER 30th. Don't miss out on submitting your short film!

Last week to send your work to Cinequest, voted Best Film Festival by USA Today Readers



Cinequest fuses innovation with the arts to empower great creations and to connect audiences, youth, artists, and innovators with these creations and with each other; forging community, joy, and our future. Set in Silicon Valley, Cinequest’s uniqueness, impact, and legacy result from applying this powerful integration of creativity and technology to inspire and transform lives.


The highest honor, the Maverick Award, recognizes bold, visionary and creative forces—exemplary in the worlds of Silicon Valley innovation and the creative arts. Its Maverick Spirit Awards has recognizes artists as Nicolas Cage, Harrison Ford, Tatiana Maslany, J.J. Abrams, Rosario Dawson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ben Kingsley or Sir Ian McKellen.


33rd edition of Cinequest will do as much with Film & Technology as ever while expanding to include additional creative experiences such as virtual and augmented realities, fashion, writing, television, dance, art & design, a creativity summit, and more!

Qualifier for the Academy Awards®: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized the Cinequest Film & VR Festival as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for the Academy Awards.

You can submit your features or short films only up to the November 18. Don't leave it until the last minute!

Send your short film before October, 1st to Slamdance Film Festival: qualifier-festival with $25000 in cash awards



More than 25 years ago, a group of filmmakers were rejected by the Sundance Film Festival. Unwilling to take “no” for an answer, they started their own event instead: the Slamdance Film Festival. Today, Slamdance has become a year-round organization fostering the development of unique and innovative filmmakers.


Under the slogan "By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers", the festival is now a showcase for raw and innovative cinema that provides selected filmmakers with a launch pad for their career, exposing them to industry and the media. Filmmakers who first showed their work at the festival are now amongst the biggest names in the entertainment industry, such as Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Ari Aster (Midsommar), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball), The Russo Brothers (Avengers: Endgame), Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) or Lena Dunham (Girls).


Slamdance offers an intimate community experience in which audience members, filmmakers, festival programmers and industry professionals all mingle in the same hallways and sit side by side in screening rooms to discover the next generation of cinema talent.




Oscar® and BAFTA awards qualifier festival in the short film category : Narrative, Documentary and Animation short films under 40 minutes will be eligible for the Best Short Film Award, qualifier for The Academy® and BAFTA Awards.

The Festival accepts films of all genres and themes from all countries of the world. Highlighting the low-budget narrative and documentary characteristics of novel directors, breakup characteristics of more experienced directors, etc. Plus, Slamdance GIVES AWAY $25000 in prizes. Think about it no more and send your short film before next Thursday, October 1st!