César Velasco Broca, working on an essay film about myths as part of the X Films project, to be screened at 11th Punto de Vista

His essay film, the winner of the Punto the Vista X Films project, shows an ancient foundational narrative of Navarra modelled after the Old Testament that runs parallel to a purely formal discourse unveiling the abandonment of myth in today’s world. In this film, the director of Footsy (1996) and Avant Pétalos Grillados (2006) tells a story that lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, inviting an alternative game duplicating sound, image and editing. Velasco Broca focuses on Tubal, a character in the Old Testament, recoding the places and landscapes he went through with his tribe. As described by the filmmaker himself, ‘The essay is close to landscape film, only that shooting, shot composition and editing are exactly those in a fiction film, without the characters or their material extensions.’

To recreate Tubal and his people’s journey, Velasco Broca recorded the megalithic ruins in northern Navarra, all the way to the valley of the river Arga. Their itinerary begins in Alto de Otsondo, going down into the valley of Baztán across Amaiur-Maya and Elizondo, and reaching Oronoz-Mugaire. From here, it gets to Ventas de Arraitz and down to the Arga valley, following the river across Arre and coming to Pamplona.

After shooting in November and December, Velasco Broca will show his film at the 11th Punto de Vista Festival (6-11 March 2017). His materials are a heterogeneous mix: Super 8 movie fragments, MiniDV recordings from episode 2 of a never-released sci-fi show made in 2005, mobile photos and videos from 2016, and a huge variety of video materials using technologies from 1980 to the present at the editing stage.

Velasco Broca’s team includes Ramón Churruca, Jesús Sáenz de Pipaón, Julián Génisson, Lorena Iglesias and Beatriz Lobo.

César Velasco Broca won the 6th X Films project of the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival, beating Carolina Astudillo and Xacio Baño. X Films focuses on the most alternative, decent and ground-breaking non-fiction films being shot in Spain today. The ultimate goal is to create a collection of films shot in Navarra under similar premises to those that informed X Films, the production company founded by Juan Huarte, businessman and art patron: to support and finance film enterprise whose starting point is an X for uncertainty.

In the past few months, audiences were able to see Carretera de una sola dirección, by Xiana Gómez-Díaz, winner of X Films 2015. Premiered at the 10th Punto de Vista, this documentary following the route of roadside brothels in Navarra was shown at the Contemporary Culture Centre in Barcelona (CCCB), as part of the programme ‘Pantalla’, and at the 7th (S8) Mostra de Cine Periférico in A Coruña, in the section ‘Artist in Focus’.