It will be happening to many of you these days that, suddenly, you receive a call or videochat from a friend or acquaintance with whom, before, you talked frequently, but what, because of the confinement to which we are obliged, It seems like you haven't done it in a long time.. Picked up (each one in their own way) in our houses, We receive this virtual visit as if it were a party. He is that always friend, but the obligation to maintain the distances that confinement imposes on us makes the event a special event. Knowing that it is there is, by himself, a reason for celebration.
Well then, those who are still there, at our side, It is the team of the Valencia Film Archive. As happens in so many other areas of our new lives (let's hope, temporary), The current state of health emergency has forced La Filmo to close the Sala Berlanga and temporarily close its film programming. But that does not mean that we have to remain orphans of cinema. For it The Film Library has prepared two short programs and offers several works from its historical collection that have been restored, which you can access from their website.
Con The curt party at home, we can enjoy a very succulent selection of short films made by Valencian audiovisual professionals. A very interesting sample of the talent that is here. Until now, The curt party at home has already launched three programs or groups of short films grouped by themes or genres. In the first “session” of the program you will be able to enjoy (here y here) of a good selection with the best of Valencian animated short films made in recent years. Four short films for the little ones that include the following titles. Start with Greta and the vegefantastics by Jorge Bellver, film that tells the life of Greta, a girl whose life changes when she receives a visit from a group of vegetables that will help her have a healthy life. This piece is followed by two works by Jaime Maestro, OA, story set in Mongolia in which a girl sees her world turned upside down by a falling star, y The Hum Sellero, Goya finalist short that tells the arrival of a street vendor to a small town where he will transform the lives of its citizens. Complete this program The cryptozoòleg by Vicente Mallols.
But things have only just begun.. In it second program We find another selection of Valencian short films that, under the title Committed to reality, It gives us the opportunity to reflect on the folds of the system in which we find ourselves immersed., cinema that brings us closer to everyday reality from different points of view and genres. We found four titles. We start with I just had a dream by Javier Navarro, in which we reflect on the differences between countries through the dreams of a girl who aspires to live in the first world. This is followed by When everything happens by Suso Imbernón, in which we immerse ourselves in the survival problems of a family when the father loses his job, o Dandelion by Jorge Bellver, an animation piece for adults to address the immigration conflict in a poetic fable in which we follow the exodus of a dandelion that travels from Africa to our coasts. In a place by Iván Fernández de Córdoba, We see the weight of prejudice when a family is left stranded on the road and their only help is an immigrant passing by., a theme, that of immigration, which has its continuation in A by Javier Marco, a story of solidarity in the worst circumstances.
Con The curt party at home #3 (here y here), and under the generic title of A little history, We approach our recent History with three short format proposals of very diverse conception. The program starts with two documentaries, Failures of the 37. art at war by Oscar Martin, that brings us closer to the prolegomena of the Civil War, when several avant-garde artists conceive four Fallas monuments with anti-fascist content after the arrival of the government of the Republic to our capital, y The last hug by Sergius Pitarch, in which the same author travels through some letters found by chance through the lives of other people from the past. The animation piece completes the program The neverending wall by Silvia Carpizo, who takes us on a tour of the paintings that decorate the Berlin Wall, a living and moving monument.
But La Filmoteca's programming does not end here. To these programs, The center wants to share with the Valencians part of its historical collection to show us its restoration work. For this he offers us several jobs. In the first block and accompanying the programming of the first session of The curt party at home, We found three tapes with a compilation of animation works dated to the beginning of the 20th century, a sample of how cinema has evolved over its long century of history and proof that, from the beginning, animation would serve as a vehicle, not only of the uses and customs of each era (How will the future see what we do today??), but as a receptacle of a magical conception of life. And accompanying the third short program, We also find the documentary piece Bonfires of San Juan by Pascual Orts, long piece that takes us on a tour of the Alicante festivities a hundred years ago. Cinema is also History.
Both the programming of The curt party at home, as the samples of restored cinema will be renewed every Thursday on the website of the IVAC. G.LEON
