After Oskar Alegria took over as Artistic Director the key concept was ‘Islands’ (2015). After a hiatus that almost ended in demise, the Festival came back stronger, like an island surrounded by many other festivals. Isolated from its terra firma counterparts, which screened more mainstream films, Punto de Vista stood apart, clinging to its singular programme.
In 2016, on the occasion of Punto de Vista’s 10th anniversary, the key concept was ‘Time’, with the idea of celebrating the evolution of the Festival (and film in general) through the years. The Jean-Daniel Pollet retrospective pointed at the same idea: how to trap a ticking clock into a film.
In 2017, the theme for the retrospective will be ‘Flying’. It will refer not only to man’s desire but also to birds, the composition of air, everyday life in airports, how astronauts feel, the acrobatics of springboard divers, the mesmerising power of clouds, the sheikhs’ passion for falcons, man’s attempts at being a winged creature, news from air walkers, and so on. A theme illustrating the Festival’s narrative and aesthetics and offering endless possibilities for poetry and visual impact.
The Festival’s poster is in harmony with this idea, showing a blackcap and the caption ‘Flying’. Unlike the images of the past editions, which were photographs authored by someone with no connection to the Festival itself, the 2017 poster shows a design without an author, where no image has been fabricated. It shows a blackcap and the caption ‘Flying’. The poster is the result of chance: the bird crashed against a window in the Festival’s designer’s office. This incident gave rise to a question: Where is an image born? Is it always in our minds? Or is it from an object that exists outside our heads? If it is the latter, do we go to them or is it rather that images find their way into us?
In this case, the answer is self-evident. It is reverse flight, from the image to the imagination – the move against the tide that is a hallmark of Punto de Vista. Right from the beginning, we have embraced alternative roads and made way for unexpected realitie