Over 1.2000 films are submitted every year, of which the festival selects a maximum of twenty to take part in the competition.

The spirit of the competition is clear: the competing filmmakers must try with each film to steer away from the well trodden paths and do it with a clear ethical commitment. From there on, they have total freedom in content and form. All non-fiction audiovisual formats that provide a reflection on reality can take part in the Official Section. The Jury is to assess films for quality, originality and, above all, their capacity to "open our eyes and help us see beyond appearances," in Jean Vigo's words.

Right from the beginings, Punto de Vista accepted one of the main responsibilities of any film festival: to perform an educational role for the general public and rescue the memory of film from oblivion. Retrospectives was the section that took up this challenge. At every subsequent edition, Punto de Vista has attempted to raise awareness about the classics, provide access to filmographies under construction and give an airing to work from schools, currents and unknown cinematographies. Retrospectives provide the epicentre of the festival and define its tone, ambition and spirit.

These cycles can revolve around an author or a country or current. At the 2005 edition, for example, the spotlight was turned onto the French director and photographer Raymond Depardon, and in 2010, the work of Jem Cohen took centre stage. In 2006 it was Japan's moment of glory. The Film of a Thousand Years was a retrospective that recovered classic Japanese documentary films from the last 60 years. In the 6th edition, Las afinidades Vigo/Vigo affinities led us to rethink the French non-fiction film of the past decade, whereas Esencial James Benning/The Essential James Benning discovered the work of this American experimental filmmaker in 2009.

Other cycles might be organised around a common denominator, which could be a theme, an anniversary, an ephemerid or an historical event. They are transversal cycles that offer a cross-reading of the history of documentary film. The film-essay was the motif chosen for the 2007 edition. Entitled The thinking form, this cycle was the first retrospective on the contemporary film-essay organised in Spain, and one of the first in Europe. Two years later, in 2009, this section focused on found footage and appropriation in The afterlife of images, while in 2011, Personal is politics offered a tour of the intersections between feminism and documentary.

In 2013 Punto de Vista focused on two filmmakers: the retrospective Fragments of Seeking, about the german documentary filmmaker Thomas Heise, a chronicler of the continuities and changes in the unification of Germany; and Gaze and Voice, about the work of Eduardo Coutinho, the greatest Brazilian documentary filmmaker of the last three decades.

After a hiatus in 2014, when Punto de Vista was offered as a seminar, in 2015 there were three retrospectives: Chez les Basques, about Basque customs and traditions; Margaret Tait, Scottish filmmaker; and Islands, about man in extreme situations, on the edge.

In 2016, on the occasion of Punto de Vista's 10th year, there will be a retrospective about Time, a concept inherent to film language, and another focusing on French filmmaker Jean-Daniel Pollet, whose artisan films abound in time references.

In 2017, FLYING was programmed, a cycle about the human being’s desire to fly, but also about what the flight of birds hides, the composition of the air, the daily life of an airport, how an astronaut feels, the acrobatics of trampoline jumpers, the hypnotic power of the clouds, the passion of Arabic sheikhs for halcons, the attempts to become a winged creature and news from other pedestrians of the air... Furthermore, the Luciano Emmer non-fiction work has also been programmed, particularly his essays from 2000, is one of the best examples of the essay approach to the filming of art.

Punto de Vista has screened the following retrospectives:

• Raymond Depardon (2005)
• Homenaje a Jean Vigo (2005)
• Homenaje a Pío Caro Baroja (2005)
• El cine de los mil años (2006)
• Homenaje X Films (2006)
• La forma que piensa (2007)
• Diarios de David Perlov (2007)
• Querido Andrei (2007)
• Ermanno Olmi (2008)
• El silencio (2008)
• Heterodocsias. La mano que mira (2008)
• James Benning (2009)
• Heterodocsias. Sin fin (2009)
• La segunda vida de las imágenes (2009)
• Jem Cohen (2010)
• Afinidades Vigo (2010)
• Lo personal es político (2011)
• Tupi or Not Tupi. Caníbales contra vampiros (2011)
• Thomas Heise. Fragmentos de búsqueda (2013)
• Eduardo Coutinho. Mirada y voz (2013)
• Margaret Tait (2015)
• Islas (2015)
• Ten Years Older. Time and Cinema (2016)
• Pollet. The House and The World (2016)
• Volar (2017)
• Luciano Emmer (2017)
• Correspondences: films as letters (2018)
• Marcia Hafif (2019)
• Jonathan Schwartz (2019)

The concept of documentary goes well beyond film to encompass a never-ending array of other aspects. In an attempt to include these aspects of documentary, Punto de Vista has created a space for those activities and events that cannot be part of the Festival's traditional sections. This space is the one made up by special sessions.

Unique special films, panels, discussions of unexplored topics or new trends, live music, shows that blend images with words and music, master classes, tributes, workshops and seminars. A wide range of activities that Punto de Vista considers necessary to draw a full map of documentary film. The special sessions are reinvented every year, making them an ever-evolving and fresh window onto the festival, rich and provoking in their confluence of styles and proposals.

HETERODOCSIES

Inviting reflection on heterodoxy in documentary filmmaking in Spain, on the margins of the canon. This is the purpose of Heterodocsias/Heterodocsies, a project developed in Punto de Vista with the intention of being provocative. It was created as a springboard for the boldest, most provocative unknown contemporary documentary filmmakers in Spain. And also to unearth buried or cursed names and look at the history of Spanish film from a different point of view.

Heterodocsias had the honour of being inaugurated in 2007 by the outspoken Basilio Martín Patino with the presentation of his works A la sombra de la Alhambra and El grito del sur. Patino described this transgressive point of the heterodox documentary openly and frankly. "My films are documented stories based around a concept from reality that is sometimes taken directly, but most of the time, I learned to make it up. I have difficulty distinguishing between truth and lies in film, where everything has always been a lie. Wonderful lies that have shaped us. But, in any case, making such tremendous cinema does give you a special kind of feeling. You spend the whole day in a trance".

Heterodocsias returns every year like a temporal game, revealing to us an unfamiliar memory, a restless present and a promising future.

Although Heterodocsias gave its name to a section of the festival that included a dual programme (Heterodocsias-rewind and Project X Films) in previous editions, this will be separated from Proyecto X Films, which is now an independent section.