For the third consecutive year, The Memory and Utopia series arrives at La Filmoteca, one of the sections that are part of the programming of the Valladolid International Film Week (Seminci), created in 2023 in order to recover restored versions of forgotten or censored masterpieces and films. In the last edition of the festival –the 70th–, The Memory and Utopia section was dedicated to highlighting the historical role of Seminci as a reference for social and humanist cinema in Spain..
For seven decades, The Valladolid festival has forged an identity based on commitment and the deepest humanism, being a pioneer in our country in giving visibility to films and authors (and authors) fundamental, as well as works that have been left out of the official canon. To celebrate this legacy, the festival selected a dozen titles from the history of its programming, with gender parity among filmmakers, eleven of which we now present in Valencia. The series invites the public to reconsider the place in cinema history of these films, that cover the different aspects of social and political cinema with an expansive view in geographical terms, chronological and thematic. Among them are The Bridge (1959), de Bernhard Wicki, the great post-war German anti-war film; The turn (Mandabi) (1968), by Ousmane Sembène, who established the foundations of independent African cinema; the dazzling Lucia (1970), by Humberto Solas, innovative feature film in its narrative structure, key piece in the development of the New Latin American Cinema; Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), Oscar-winning Barbara Kopple documentary, that established the new standards of political and social documentary film, of Ana, one of the anthropological and poetic films, beautiful, by the Portuguese Antonio Reis and Margarida Cordeiro. Eleven films that move away from the cinematographic canon and introduce the perspectives of the periphery, those of women or African and Latin American filmmakers.
After curiosity, the desire for fresh air and to shake up the board of the “official” history of cinema that characterizes this cycle is, definitely, the imprint of José Luis Cienfuegos, director of Seminci since 2023, after directing the Gijón International Film Festival (1995-2011) and the Seville European Film Festival (2012-2022). His sudden death last December deprives us, to all movie lovers, to enjoy the future projects of one of the men who, from Gijjón, Sevilla o Valladolid, he did more for the dissemination of auteur cinema in our country. Of less conventional cinema, risky movies, radicals, relevant, because they are what keep cinema always alive and interesting us.
Cienfuegos (Aviles, 1964 – 2025) He has been one of the great friends and accomplices of the Valencian Film Library, which since the nineties has programmed cycles in collaboration with the three festivals it directed. Some of the most relevant were those dedicated, over several years, to the New Cinemas of different countries, accompanied by collective books published by Ediciones de La Filmoteca. That's why, Tuesday 3 February, The first session of this edition of “Memory and Utopia” will be preceded by an introduction to the cycle and a brief tribute to José Luis Cienfuegos presented by José Antonio Hurtado, Head of Programming at La Filmoteca between 1989 y 2025. We will have the presence of Mariona Viader and Javier H. Estrada, who were part of the Cienfuegos team as general coordinator and programmer of Seminci, respectively, and have recently been named co-directors of the festival, which ensures the continuity of the Asturian legacy.
05.02.26 THURSDAY / 18.00 h
Harlan County U.S.A.
BARBARA KOPPLE. USA. 1976. VOS SPANISH. Color. 103′. Digital.
Iconic figure of documentary film in the United States, Barbara Kopple has devoted decades of her career to exploring issues such as labor justice with a critical and sensitive eye, freedom of expression and the rights of transgender people. His debut work Harlan County, U.S.A - winner of the Oscar for best documentary in 1976-, narrates the success in the Brookside vagabond, a small town in Kentucky in which 180 Coal miners are going to attack Duke Power and the United Mine Workers union in 1973 to demand an improvement in their conditions. Its recent restoration immerses us in one of the milestones of American non-fiction cinema, a powerful and harrowing portrait that puts the focus on the active role of women who participated in the struggle of a community that fought to survive and only received as a response a violent and intimidating repression by the institutions.
