The fifth edition of El Día Más Corto [ED+C] has paid tribute to the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC), with the programming of a selection of the best short films made by the school; Treitum (Javier Ruiz Caldera), La ruta natural (Alex Pastor), Temporada 92-93 (Alejandro Marzoa), Pablo (Nely Reguera), La huida (Víctor Carrey), Mi ojo derecho (Josecho de Linares), En la azotea (Damià Serra) and Café para llevar (Patricia Font).
In addition to the screening of these short films produced by ESCAC, El Día más corto has given an award to Sergi Casamitjana, director of ESCAC, in recognition of the work carried out in these almost 25 years as a benchmark training centre for Spanish cinema.
The event took place on Monday 18 December at the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas, and was attended by the director general of the ICAA, Óscar Graefenhain.
After the screening of the short films, a colloquium was held with Sergi Casamitjana, director of the school, Lita Roig, director of ESCAC FILMS, and the filmmaker Javier Ruiz Caldera, graduate and author of films such as Spanish Movie, Promoción fantasma, 3 bodas de más and Anacleto, agente secreto, Superlópez.
“The first thing they teach you at school is to tell things you know, so that’s where I drew from to write the short film”, said the Catalan director. Although he trained in editing because “it was a tangible profession, which was more reassuring to explain to my parents, I always thought of being a director”. The director, who is currently in the editing phase of Superlópez, stressed that “at the ESCAC they are so critical when it comes to assessing your work that afterwards you are used to it and it doesn’t affect you”. He also continues to “show what I’m doing to my colleagues and friends, so that they can comment on it freely, and then keep what interests me”.
Casamitjana, for his part, highlighted the work of the ESCAC in “teaching audiovisual language, the language of images, which is not taught in compulsory education, which focuses on verbal language, the language of words”.