Punto de Vista International Seminar 2014

The frozen image, perspectives on filming through the cold

Punto de Vista is organising another edition of its seminar, an event for teaching and film showings, bridging the gap between editions of the festival. As in 2012, we will be honoured with the presence of two international film-makers, IGNACIO AGÜERO and PEMA TSEDEN, both of whom have presented very little of their work in Spain and who will share with us their vision of film and film-making. The seminar will also include a retrospective on each of them. Furthermore, at this event, there will be a new edition of the X Films Project, and a special closing session.

Delegates at the seminar will have the opportunity to examine in depth the work of the Chilean cineaste Ignacio Agüero, veteran film-maker with a very interesting documentary film oeuvre, always aiming to shake off the initial idea it starts out with, which he achieves magnificently in his latest work, El otro día, with an argument that is as risky as it is promising: a film about the people who ring on his doorbell. Appearing alongside him will be Pema Tseden, a young Tibetan film-maker, the only director to make films in this language in his home country, and who is successfully navigating the Beijing censors, with three feature-length films to his name and an attractive way of filming the twilight years of his homeland Tibetan traditions, following a much sharper formula than the rather hackneyed fake documentary: fake fiction.

In February, Pamplona is once again keeping its date with non-fictional film, which this year we have called "The frozen image". Punto de Vista has lodged itself in the imagination of our visitors like a shelter in a storm. Pamplona, February, snow, and film are words from the same sentence, words that we reaffirm every year when we turn the seventh art into a continuation of telling old stories by the fire. We are adding to the cold this year with Ignacio Agüero's "Sueños de Hielo" (ice dreams) and the high altitude oxygen-less cinema of Pema Tseden. Once again, Punto de Vista is celebrating the inclement weather.

Furthermore, the seminar will also be incorporating a new edition of the X Films Project, which will continue to be held every year: three new film-makers will be presenting their work and defending their projects, and there will be a public presentation of the winning film from 2012, directed by Francina Verdés, based on her personal take on tradition and filmed between Viver and Burguete, a landscape that once against guarantees the presence of snow.

The closing session opens up a new space that will be continued in future editions of the Punto de Vista Festival, “Thinking film”. In 2014, this session will include a programme on Saturday 22nd at 8 p.m., entitled Snow movies, which will bring together a series of pieces related and devoted to snow. The session will be led by the Spanish poet Menchu Gutiérrez, one of the best essayists and writers of our time, author of a book entitled Decir la nieve (Saying snow) which compiles fundamental and very precise ideas that will guide us through the programme we have sketched out.

OBSERVATIONS:

The registration period for the seminar opens on the 4th November.

The morning sessions are reserved for registered delegates of the seminar. The afternoon showings are open to the general public, who must collect their tickets in advance from the box office.