Punto de Vista builds bridges between film and other forms of art and thought in Contactos

The end of March sees the beginning of the seventeenth edition of the Punto de Vista festival - promoted by the government of Navarra and organised by the public company NICDO - which now completes its programme with the announcement of its latest section: Contactos.

Contactos opens up film to other forms of art and thought. This is particularly relevant in documentary film, which by definition is oriented towards thought and knowledge, and which shares with other contemporary art forms an interest in exploring reality. The section takes its name from one of the most mould-breaking films in the history of Spanish cinema, Contactos (Paulino Viota, 1970), featured in the first Heterodocsias Rewind at the Festival, in 2010.

First, Lecciones de cosas: Rossellini, Godard-Miéville will deal with two of the most radical educational projects in film history: the 70s productions for television by the couple formed by the recently-deceased Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, and the second part of Roberto Rossellini's career, focused from the 60s onwards on educational productions for the small screen. The festival will be devoting two sessions to this. On the one hand, three episodes of Rosellini and Godard-Miéville's television work will be screened, followed by a discussion with José Antonio Escrig, lecturer in the specific teaching department of Zaragoza university's education faculty, and José Ángel Alcalde, the film writer and researcher. On the other, a talk by Paulino Viota, one of the leading experts in Godard's work, who has just published the book Jean-Luc Godard. 60 años insumiso (Athenaica, 2022), entitled El pensamiento sensible de Godard [Godard's Sensitive Thought].

Punto de Vista returns to the Pamplona planetarium with Kosmogonía, a performance installation by the  visual artist Deneb Martos and sound improviser Wade Matthews, who have previously worked together on pieces like Gold Film and Skin Film. The piece starts out from the procedure of the chemigram (a camera-less film process) to evoke the history not only of life and the biosphere but also of the planet and the cosmos. The session will continue with poetry readings by Bárbara Mingo and live music by Wade Matthews, as well as several analogue projectors working at once, transforming the usual venue and projection experience of the planetarium.

Another of the festival's regular venues, the Oteiza museum, will on Saturday morning be hosting Altzuza, a sound performance by the musician Ibon RG. Starting out playing Basque folk music, in 1999 he began to sing and play the guitar in the group Eten. By 2006, under the name Ibon RG, he was composing experimental pieces with instruments and objects of all kinds. By the time of his first solo live show, his voice had become the only instrument. He has worked on many joint projects, in both improvised and composed music, in productions, music for film and theatre and reports for the radio and print media. The album oMOrruMU baMAt, released together with Enrike Hurtado in 2021, sets out from some words by Joxan Artze and his contribution to the txalaparta, a Basque traditional instrument. The Oteiza will also be hosting an exhibition by the artist Misha Bies Golas, the creator of the image for this year's festival.

The programme of Contactos - and that of the festival itself - will end with a screening of La Montagne infidèle, a lost piece by Jean Epstein (1897-1953) recently recovered and restored by the Filmoteca de Catalunya, which has loaned the film to the festival for a screening accompanied by live music by Ibon RG himself. At the age of 26 and at the beginning of his career, Epstein filmed this documentary of the eruption of Mount Etna in June 1023. La Montagne infidèle deals with the interest in real scenarios that was to dominate his film work from the 30s onwards, in this case taking the form of an extraordinary cataclysm. The legendary aura of the film is the result not only of its topic and filming conditions, but also of Epstein's written essays. His second book about film was entitled Le Cinématographe vu de l'Etna (1926), and in it his theoretical thought seems to emerge from the extreme experience of the volcano.

On Friday 10th March Punto de Vista will announce its full daily programme, and tickets will go on sale through its website and at the Baluarte box office. The period for professionals and audiovisual students to apply for passes will remain open until 15th March, also through the website.