The Pamplona-based docfest Punto de Vista this week unveiled the programme for its 18th edition, running 11 to 16 March. 80 films will be shown across 65 programmed sessions, including Q&As with film-makers, workshops, musical activities and family film sessions. “For six days, film-lovers from the city and surrounding area will rub shoulders with documentary film-makers and professionals, alongside film students from all over Spain,” write organisers.
This year, Punto de Vista is divided into six sections:
- The Official Selection which comprises 23 films from fifteen countries: Argentina, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Colombia, South Korea, Cuba, Denmark, Spain, United States, France, India, Japan, North Macedonia and Peru.
- In Focus, during which Punto de Vista focuses its gaze on international filmmakers Su Friedrich (USA) and Joël Akafou (Ivory Coast), plus a programme curated by Miriam Martín on the role of trees in documentary cinema
- Mediation Programme, which “continues to open the festival up to all types of audiences throughout the city, particularly young people”
- Lan (meaning work in the Basque language), which generates spaces to think about creation and production in documentary cinema
- Contacts, which aims to connect the festival with other disciplines and which this year features the work of revered artists Jerome Hiler and Néstor Basterretxea
- The X Films project, which this year nominates Celia Viada Caso as its filmmaker who will shoot a film in Navarre. The festival will also premiere the film Tránsitos, a personal view of the local San Fermin festival which Anna López Luna shot on Super 8.
“This edition is bringing the brand-new idea of a series of itineraries, cutting across the different sections,” write organisers. “These are collections criss-crossing the programme, concerned by the same issues or… inviting visitors to discover the festival for the first time. Memory, individualism, inequalities, feminism, queer bodies or the climate emergency, among other topics, are portrayed in the festival’s various films which have been included in these itineraries.”
Approximately 70 guests have been invited to attend screenings and festival activities with a “high proportion” of international filmmakers, programmers and curators, and other professionals, the festival writes.
Punto de Vista opens Monday 11 March with the screening of Zinzindurrunkarratz (2023), the multi-award-winning film by Oskar Alegria, who was the festival’s artistic director between 2013 and 2017.
The closing ceremony will comprise a screening of de caballos y guitarras by Pedro G. Romero, described as “a stunning musical film where the sensitivity of guitars played by artists such as Raül Refree, Pepe el Habichuela or Pilar Monsell combines with the majesty of mares and stallions such as Triana, Onkaia or Víktor K.” The evening will conclude with a concert featuring the guitar and voice of Seville’s María Marín.
The festival programme also includes a series of concerts, DJ sessions and radio shows featuring live music, working with the Navarra Music Commission, Txintxarri and Radio 3. Punto de Vista Nights gives audiences the chance to experience various local talents such as Mon Dvy, DJ Rizos, Señora, DJ Moderno or Brecha.
