Punto de Vista presents its complete programme and announces "The letters that weren’t and also are"

Rebeca Esnaola, the Government of Navarra Minister for Culture and Sport, Garbiñe Ortega, the artistic director of Punto de Vista, and Teresa Morales de Álava, executive director of Punto de Vista, presented at a press conference this morning the full programme for the festival, to be held in Pamplona from 15 to 20 March. At the conference, they announced this year’s publication, Letters as films, co-edited with La Fábrica, a continuation of the 2018 publication which recompiles engaging letters between directors, this time focusing on contemporary filmmakers. They also presented The letters that weren’t and also are, a collective audiovisual project which has involved several contemporary filmmakers producing filmed letters addressed to other directors from film history who they do/did not know in person. The collection will be screened for the first time at the closing ceremony of the festival.

In line with previous editions, the Punto de Vista programme will consist of seven major sections. The Official selection will showcase 32 films selected from submissions arriving from all around the world; the Retrospectives will be devoted to the influential curator Amos Vogel and the artist Nancy Holt; DOKBIZIA will bring together artists from different disciplines, such as Lois Patiño, C.W. Winter, María Salgado, Vera Mantero, Xabier Erkizia, Fermín Jiménez Landa, Oier Etxeberria and Sam Green, to share their way of relating to reality; the Punto de Vista Labs will provide a space for knowledge sharing and collective creation; Artists in focus, will include the 16-mm films of Robert Fenz, Pedro G. Romero’s latest film, Nueve Sevillas, the Punto de Vista session with the researcher Nicholas Zembashi from Forensic Architecture and an event with the audio artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan. There will also be the Special sessions, with programmes like X Films and Paisaia, focusing on Basque-Navarrese filmmakers; and, finally, the Educational programme, which continues to open the festival up to new audiences.

On-site, online and with a new open-air venue: La Plaza
While the 15th edition of Punto de Vista will be held on-site, complying at all times with the required safety measures, the festival will also be sharing part of its programme online on the Festival Scope platform. On-site tickets and the different online passes are available for purchase now on the festival website, www.puntodevistafestival.com.

This year Punto de Vista will have a new venue, organised in collaboration with Pamplona City Council: La Plaza. A marquee will be set up in the square outside Baluarte, the festival's headquarters, where the public will be able to gather and attend a set of festival activities. The marquee will host the festival press conferences, two daily showings, with free entrance until capacity is reached, of the piece created by the City Council in 2020 on Los No San Fermines, a talk on Dardara with Marina Lameiro, Gorka Urbizu and Garbiñe Ortega, and screenings of proprietary content from previous years of Punto de Vista and Napardocs, a Napar initiative in collaboration with Clavna that the festival has run for several editions and serves as a bridge between the association and filmmakers taking part in the festival.

The letters that weren’t and also are
Garbiñe Ortega, the artistic director of Punto de Vista, came up with the idea of a collective audiovisual project in collaboration with the filmmaker Matías Piñeiro in which several filmmakers should write a filmed letter to another filmmaker from film history who they did not know personally and was as far detached from their own work as possible. And so, The letters that weren’t and also are was born.

Beatrice Gibson, Nicolás Pereda, Deborah Stratman, Lynne Sachs, Raya Martin, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Alejo Moguillansky and Diana Toucedo have produced this collection of eight short films, which find a new dimension when shown together and will be premiered at the festival's closing ceremony. Their filmed letters are addressed to such diverse people as Jean Vigo, Wes Craven, Chantal Akerman, Chick Strand, Michelangelo Antonioni, Danièle Huillet, Barbara Loden, Nina Menkes, Bette Gordon and Nancy Holt. The result is a thrilling journey through their affinities, admiration and creative processes.

Letters as films
This book is the result of an extended project that first took shape in 2018 with the publication of Correspondence: letters as films, which since then has continued to collect fascinating letters between filmmakers to trace hitherto unthinkable connections and relationships to outline new film genealogies and cinematographic families. This year, in collaboration with La Fábrica, Punto de Vista is publishing a second volume of correspondence, focusing this time on contemporary filmmakers, understood as artists who have been active until relatively recently.

It is a book open to different interpretations, which suggests relationships between letters and images, leaps in time, non-explicit subchapters, short sequenced tributes — like the one to Harun Farocki or to a generation of American avant-garde filmmakers — and imaginary letters written for the project by filmmakers of the present to those of the past, living or dead, who they do/did not know.

Official Selection
The Official Selection of Punto de Vista 2021 is arranged into 10 programmes with films that explore a wide range of topics, from observations on the domestic, the commonplace, landscape and psycho-geographies to reflections on history, gender violence and experimental composers.

Among the 30 films in this section, you can find the feature-length film The American Sector, directed by Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez, a fragmented road trip which discovers parts of the Berlin Wall erected as public monuments in the United States. The festival will also have the pleasure of welcoming some filmmakers whose locations mean they are able to attend in person, such as Jorge Moneo Quintana (In Ictu Oculi begiak hesteko artean), Patricia Esquivias (Cardón Cardinal), Pablo Marín (Trampa de Luz) and Santiago Bonilla (Paralelo 28), among others.

One highlight will be the film The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) by the directors C.W. Winter and Anders Edström, one of the sensations at the 2020 Berlinale. This 8-hour film will be shown at the University of Navarra Museum (MUN), a new Punto de Vista partner venue.

Activities at MUN, Civivox Condestable, Pamplona Planetarium, Teatro Gayarre, Navarra Film Library and Oteiza Museum
Punto de Vista will also be taking place at venues other than Baluarte and the University of Navarra Museum. Civivox Condestable will be hosting two interesting encounters with the sound artist Xabier Erkizia and the essayist and thinker Ramon Andres on Tuesday 16 March. And the Pamplona Planetarium will be showing the double bill Luces recorren mi garganta by Lois Patiño and Xabier Erkizia, and The Works and Days: The Black Sessions by C.W. Winter. Teatro Gayarre will be opening its doors once again to the festival, this year for a very special session featuring the dancer and choreographer Vera Mantero. The Navarra Film Library will show the entire retrospective devoted to Amos Vogel. Finally, on Saturday 20 March, the Oteiza Museum will collaborate with Punto de Vista for the first time with a double bill that will include a Nancy Holt retrospective programme and Salitre by the poet Maria Salgado.

Navarra, present at Punto de Vista 2021
Once again, Navarra will be very much present at Punto de Vista. Dardara, a documentary which the local filmmaker Marina Lameiro shot during the farewell tour of the Navarrese rock band Berri Txarrak, will have its world premiere at the opening of the festival. This full-length film relied on the support of the Government of Navarra through its Generazinema grants.

Another noteworthy section is Paisaia, which will showcase the latest and most daring in Basque-Navarrese documentary filmmaking. The selection of titles this year explores biographies reconstructed in voiceover using different techniques — photographic and epistolary archives, telephone conversations — and invites meditation on memory, life journeys and Basque heritage. The following films will be screened as part of the programme: Zerua blu (2020) by Lur Olaizola, Un retrato de N.B. (2020) by Peio Aguirre, Quebrantos (2020) by Koldo Almandoz and María Elorza, and Agiña (2019) by María Sánchez.

Punto de Vista will also be holding the world premiere of Tengan cuidado ahí fuera, the project by Alberto Gracia which won X Films 2020. The aim of X Films is twofold. It seeks to provide emerging filmmakers with an opportunity to create new work, while also trying to bring new voices in the documentary world to Navarra.

Finally, this year will see another edition of Napardocs, an annual event where the people behind documentary filmmaking in Navarra have a chance to reflect, an open space for discussion in three working groups: direction, production and distribution. This activity is organised by NAPAR, the Navarra Association of Producers and Audiovisual Professionals.

Collaborators
In this, its 15th edition, Punto de Vista is working once again with many of its usual partners, such as Red Civivox, the Pamplona Planetarium, the Navarra Film Library, Teatro Gayarre and the Goethe-Institut, and has come to agreements with a few new ones, like La Fábrica, the University of Navarra Museum and the Oteiza Museum. The Amos Vogel retrospective is possible thanks to the collaboration agreements reached with the Spanish Film Library, Cineteca and the Catalonian Film Library.

Like many other cultural sectors, film festivals have had time to forge ties and networks during the pandemic, leading to the creation of several competition associations, such as Federación Pantalla, which represents regional coordinators, and La Mesta, which brings together festivals from different provinces; Punto de Vista belongs to both. The festival’s collaboration with Pantalla has led to the creation of an institutional work group with the participation of different institutions and organisations that support the work of festivals.