Garbiñe Ortega Postigo is appointed the new artistic director of the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival

The new director was chosen from a total of nine candidates.

The jury agreed to appoint Garbiñe Ortega Postigo as the new artistic director of the Punto de Vista International Film Festival, from a total of nine candidates for the position. This is the fourth of the festivals promoted by the Department of Culture to appoint its artistic director by means of a public competition. 

In this process, the Jury was particularly impressed by her solid background and the international dimension of her career as well as her proposal for the Festival programme, which advocated three qualities: Living/alive, hybrid, and common.

The project submitted by Garbiñe Ortega (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1981) aims to "foster expansions between artistic practices, particularly between cinema, literature, and the living arts in non-fictional terrain”. It also focuses on "the growth of new audiences, on public participation and creation, to generate a sense of community around the Festival”. In the words of the new artistic director of the Punto de Vista Festival, "documentary film can’t make the world a better place, but it can give us the tools to transform it, and that is a fascinating endeavour".

With a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the University of the Basque Country, and specialising in experimental and non-fiction film, her practical experience focuses on curatorship, education, building audiences, and the creation of specific frameworks that amplify collective cinematographic experience. In recent years she has lived in California and Mexico, and her curatorial work has been displayed internationally at different festivals in the US and Europe.

She is currently a space programmer at the Montehermoso Cultural Centre in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and a programme adviser for Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao.

She has specifically studied the documentary genre with José Luis Guerín, Antonio Weinrichter and Antoni Muntadas. She produced the latest feature film by Basque director Luiso Berdejo, Violet (2013), and most recently the trans-fiction film Casa Roshell (2016), by Chilean filmmaker Camila J. Donoso, first shown at Berlinale 2017.

She is currently directing a project on Bruce Baillie (godfather of avant-garde film in the US). She has also been a judge at prestigious festivals such as the Ann Arbor Film Festival in the US, and FICUNAM in Mexico.

Garbiñe Ortega speaks Basque and English fluently.

The members of the jury, who highlighted the strength of all the candidates for this post, were: , the director general of Culture, Fernando Pérez; the managing director of NICDO, Javier Lacunza; the director of the Cultural Action Service, Dori López; members of the Navarra Culture Board, Marta Artica and Puy Oria, and two eminent figures in the audiovisual industry, the director of the Basque Film Library, Joxean Fernández, and the director of programming for the Spanish Film Library, Carlos Reviriego.

Responsibilities of the artistic director

The artistic director of the Punto de Vista Festival is responsible for presenting a project defining the contents of the Festival, detailing the content of the different sections and information about the execution thereof. In addition, she will draw up the Festival programme, within the timeframe established and on budget, in accordance with the criteria of sustainability, proposing projects and artists, and making contacts and coordinating with artists and other guest professionals.

She will also draft a text to introduce the festival and each section, to be published on the festival catalogue and webpage, and shall write the script for the Closing Gala Ceremony, together with the festival coordinators. She is responsible for selecting the members of the Festival Selection Committee, on which she will also sit, and the members of the Festival's Official Jury.

She will also select which filmmakers will compete in the X Films Project, in addition to the members of the Selection Committee for this project. Furthermore, she will design the communications plan, in collaboration with the Festival coordinators, and will represent the Festival, taking part in acts designed to promote and publicise the Festival, as decided by the Department of Culture. Finally, she will attend film festivals in accordance with a route map agreed upon with the Festival coordinators, in order to find possible titles for the Festival programme.

The post of artistic director of the Punto de Vista Festival is remunerated with a fee of 15,000 euros. The contract shall remain in force from the day following its signing until 31 May 2018.

Among other requirements, candidates were required to possess a higher education/university qualification along with accredited background and experience that would guarantee the fulfilment of the film festival's goals. They also had to possess at least three years' experience in public or private cultural organisations, particularly within the field of cinema.