The big screen will be on display over the next two weeks in Compostela. In its thirty-eighth edition, Cineuropa offers a repertoire that brings together more than 130 titles, with a look at censorship in cinema and another at the social transformations that appeared following major cinematographic trends, particularly in the United States. In this vast repertoire, which like other years is segmented into Galician, European, international, documentary and new filmmakers sections, the festival punctuates certain screenings with conferences with its directors, adds cultural cycles – including one dedicated to the imagination of the characters by Henry Fonda and another to the famous naturalist method of Marlon Brando – and celebrates the presentation of a trio of awards to the filmmakers.
The edition’s motto is “Henry Fonda for President”, name of the essay film presented in preview at this year’s Berlinale and which at the same time uses the slogans of the North American electoral campaigns. And a direct reference to the aforementioned Cineuropa cycle – one of its most relevant proposals – but also to this year’s approach, which explores the link between culture and society through cinema, taking the American nation as its setting, and as its herald, the actor Fonda, who played the head of state three times in his films.
The object of study is the the “collective imagination” which was generated around his figure, the ideals which he personified, said, in conversation with ABC, José Luis Losa, director of the festival. In retrospect, it represents a “melancholic, almost elegical vision” of a national screen, for “an America that will never return.” “The film is about the “United States of Henry Fonda”; a nation of honest people, fighting for civil rights. In difficult times, like the Great Depression, [Fonda] “He actually had a very important role,” he adds. He cites “The Grapes of Wrath”, one of those “films which mobilize, which help people to unite and participate”. Of course, with his feet on the ground: “It is not a question of idealizing North American democracy, nor of the way in which Hollywood has used this ideology. It has been used many times for cinema, but In the case of Fonda and this film, which is an essay, it becomes something very political. »
Archeology of the seventh art
Another cornerstone is censorship, in its different forms, and buried audiovisual media. This is the case for two big bets of this edition: the screenings of ‘From Darkness to Light’ and ‘7291’. In the latter case, Cineuropa is offering a world premiere of a documentary which dissects the management of retirement homes in Madrid during the pandemic, “this tragedy” which left a fatal toll named after the title. A film by Juanjo Castro that “had problems” when it premiered in other festivals in Spain due to its harsh criticism of the government of Díaz Ayuso and the latter being described as “protocols of shame” , said Losa; but whose projection was clear from the start for the director of the Compostela competition.
Another exponent, “From Darkness to Light,” is Jerry Lewis’s attempt at a story in which he portrays a clown in a concentration camp during World War II who distracted the children who walked toward the cameras. An idea “so crazy, so weird”, which was deeply rejected and, in fact, it boosted the career of the American filmmaker. But this year, in Venice, about an hour of footage recovered from a work that turned out to be almost complete was created, with interventions from great actors such as Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro who explain how the film affected the filmmaker, how “he burned it. A “cursed” film in the world of cinema, a myth which “it was even said that it did not exist”, adds Losa.
With thirty-seven editions to its credit, and soon one more, Cineuropa continues to consolidate itself as a “street” presentation of the world of cinema, which today can be further removed from the spectator than it was previously. a few years ago due to the rise of platforms. The festival will invade the Galician capital until November 24.
