Six programmes, with a total of 18 films, make up the Punto de Vista ISLANDS cycle

'Last words'.

Along with the programmes that have already been announced, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EARTH and ISLAND-EARTH-WORLD, the ISLANDS cycle will be rounded off with another four programmes, through which we will travel around an archepelago of 22 and a half islands and a total of 18 films. The feature film by Rudolf Thome, Description of an Island, will open this cycle of the 9th edition of the Festival which will kick off with a key question:  How to tell an island? 

The LANDSCAPES THAT SHOULD NOT BE THERE programme will  delve into the different techniques of physically and cinematographically approaching an island, from the gentle prowling of Isole Nella Laguna (Luciano Emmer, Enrico Gras, 1948) to the methodical discipline of Haru, Island of the Solitary (Kanerva Cederström, Riikka Tanner, 1998). Between one and the other, the turbulent meeting between an island and the camera in Way Jambu (Manu Uranga, 2011) and the horizontal and vertical reading, determined to attack the summit, in Cochihza (Khristine Gillard, 2013). 

The second programme, I MADE A TABLE AND A CHAIR, will trace a particular review of shipwreck in films such as L´île Deserte by Sophie Roger (2014) and explore the reaons why an islander may feel like a stranger on his/her own island, uneasy within its borders, like the stars of Sanã (Marcos Pimentelm 2013) and Semangat (2010), whose directors, Chu-Li Shewring and Adam Gutch, are also appearing in The Central Region with the film, Working to Beat the Devil. 

Cortázar’s verse in his poem, Shipwrecked on an Island,  I CANNOT SAY NIGHT, gives its name to the programmes that will lock us up on prison islands, regions in which the sea rises up like the prison walls.  Comme des lions de pierre à l’entrée de la nuit, by Olivier Zuchuat (2012), takes us to the Greek island of Makronissos, where over 80,000 Greek citizens were  put into what were known as  reeducation camps between 1947 and 1950. On the other hand, in  Island Song and Island Monologue (1976), Charlemagne Palestine tackles the urgency of flight and the anxiety of confinement.    

Finally, THE END OF AN ISLAND will be a return to the  continent, a clash that raises a question over the island identity. In Episode of the Sea (2014) Lonnie Van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan ask what remains when an island joins the land. How can the isolated be saved?  The beginning of the end can also occur on an island. In Two Islands (2013), Jan Ijäs whispers the hidden secret of two islands next to the Big Apple. A stone’s throw from Manhattan, Staten Island and Hart Island are the last station of the unclaimed, of those who nobody loves, of those who have no name.