Punto de Vista presents its full programme just a few days before its seventeenth edition begins

03/21/2023

The forthcoming edition of the Punto de Vista Festival was presented at a press conference today. Promoted by the government of Navarra and organised by the public company NICDO, it is to be held in Pamplona from 27th March to 1st April. Rebeca Esnaola, the Navarrese government's minister for culture and sport, Manuel Asín, artistic director of Punto de Vista and Teresa Morales de Álava, executive director of the Festival, outlined the content and programme of this seventeenth edition.

Tickets for all sessions of the festival are now on sale to the general public, on its website and at the Baluarte box office. Standard tickets will cost 3 euros per session, except for some that will be free.

 

Something for every audience

The bill includes things that might be of interest to all kinds of audiences, not necessarily specialists, including the following highlights:

— The première on Friday 31st March of the two latest films by the German documentary maker Peter Nestler, who is also the subject of one of the festival's two retrospectives. Unrecht und Widerstand [Injustice and Resistance] and Der offene Blick [The Open View] are two 2022 films about the oppression and the history of the Sinti and Roma minorities in Europe. Recently broadcast on German state television, they are now being premièred in Spain. These screenings will be accompanied by a public conversation, to which entrance is free, between Ricardo Hernández, coordinator of Gaz Kaló, the federation of gypsy associations of Navarra, Peter Nestler himself, and the programmer of the retrospective, Lucía Salas.

— The retrospective Lejos de los árboles [Far From the Trees] will, over six sessions, be reflecting on a feature of our most immediate environment, basic necessities for human consumption and the history of how they are produced. This is a question of looking back at the path taken by a species, our own, which has gradually moved away from the natural environment to which we nevertheless belong, through forms of production that in recent centuries - or even decades - have compromised the future of all living species, including our own. All the sessions are to feature introductions and talks by Miriam Martín, the programmer behind the retrospective, and on Friday 31st March Iosu Ortigosa, a baker from Lakabe, will also be taking part.

— The festival returns to the Tornamira room of Pamplona planetarium, where the film-maker and visual artist from Madrid Deneb Martos will be presenting Kosmogonía, a film shot in 35 mm with a site-specific performance using the chemigram camera-less film technique to create, with the aid of concave mirrors, a circular projection to fit the hemispherical vault of the planetarium. This is a piece "at the service of atavistic memories," in the words of Bárbara Mingo Costales, its creator together with the sound improviser Wade Matthews. These memories are evoked as "wonders of the galaxy" through "residual, very modest" elements. "We feel the desire to come closer to what is distant," continues Bárbara, "And what seems the most distant is in fact our home (...). Here goes with an attempt to rope in everything that gravitates and revolves, using an incantation that goes, "Shine, shine, shine and tinkle." And the galaxy answers and everything shines and tinkles.

 

A family-friendly event thanks to the Punto de Vista play scheme: The Red Balloon

Like last year, the festival again sets out to be family-friendly, through the Red Balloon Punto de Vista play scheme. This offers a place for children between six months and twelve years old, open to festival pass holders, the general public and members of the festival team on 30th and 31st March and 1st April. This initiative, set up jointly with CIMA, the association of women film-makers and audiovisual media) and the Parenting at Film Festivals group, will be run by Ludoteka Zorionak Kids & Party. Places can be booked now on the website.

 

The festival image

This year's festival poster was created by the visual artist Misha Bies Golas, who is responsible for its image this time. The photographs that make up this year's festival image and come to life on the poster are part of a set of around a hundred shots taken, like a catalogue, of offcuts collected among the waste from a leather goods workshop. Viewed one by one over a light box, these fragments were photographed with the aim of emulating the mechanics of some types of shadow theatre from south-east Asia and Turkey. The tonal variations in them are the result of free interpretation by the camera of the movements of the fluorescent lights.

Continuing from previous efforts in his studio and at the monastery of the Immaculate Conception in Loeches, Misha Bies Golas has prepared a specific installation for one of the rooms in the Oteiza museum. A piece in which parchments together with light, sound and other construction materials create a dialogue with the architecture and other features of the venue in Oteiza's studio.

 

Noches de Punto de Vista, music and Radio 3

The festival can also be heard thanks to the association begun this year with the Navarra Music Commission. Noches de Punto de Vista (Punto de Vista Nights) will be happening at the Bar Nicolette from Monday to Friday from 11pm onwards, with sessions by DJs on the Navarra regional scene such as Dayanna, DJ Txino and Nikka. Also, at 10.30pm on Thursday 30th March there will be a concert by Joseba Irazoki and an appearance by Göo at Txintxarri, in a free session for which invitations will be available on Tuesday 28th March through the usual channels.

Finally, Radio 3 is to travel to Pamplona to record two special editions of the Tres en la Carretera programme, including interviews with film-makers and appearances by Baobabs Will Destroy Your Planet and Andrea Santiago. This will happen on Thursday 30th March at 6pm and on Friday 31st at 7.30pm, in the Baluarte hall, with free entrance up to the capacity of the venue.

 

Collaborators

Punto de Vista continues to work to expand its network of institutions and players in the arts industry both nationally and internationally. Thus, the festival continues to enjoy the support it has received in previous years from ICAA, Acción Cultural Española, Centro Huarte, Pamplona city council through the Civivox network, Fundación Caja Navarra, Radio 3, Filmoteca y Biblioteca de Navarra, Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza, Goethe-Institut, Golem, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Filmoteca Española, NAPAR, Cineteca, Institut Français, the Portuguese embassy, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and the Festival Scope platform.

Moreover, this year new partners are joining or collaborating with the festival, including Instituto Navarro de la Juventud, Carné Joven, Filmoteca de Catalunya, Filmoteca Valenciana CGAI, CCCB, Deutsche Kinemathek, the Argentinian embassy, Courtisane Festival, EiTB, Navarra Music Commission and DokLab Navarra.

Finally, the festival will once again be fostering professional networks, with activities organised by the bodies of which it is a member, including Federación Pantalla, La Mesta, Red IberoFest and Navarra Film Industry; setting up meetings and working sessions through projects like Doklab, and associations like NAPAR, CIMA and (H)emen.