L’Alternativa, Barcelona Independent Film Festival, will host a section of ESCAC documentary short films at its 29th edition, which will take place in Barcelona from 18 November to 4 December 2022.
This year, the festival’s parallel section, HALL INVITA, has programmed four final-year documentary shorts produced by Escac Films:
- Animal salvatge, by Maria Besora.
Three-year-old Janira doesn’t speak like the other kids. The adults are worried about Janira’s language development, but she is reluctant to take the steps to catch up. She is happiest when surrounded by animals: she talks to them in her own special way and seems to prefer living in their world to interacting with humans. Growing up, though, is unavoidable, and she will soon have to decide between staying wild or adapting to society.
- Con vistas al mar, by Marc Luguera. JUEVES 24 NOV. 19.00 h
After consolidating itself as a tourist destination in the mid-1960s, the small coastal town of Hospitalet de l’Infant has become a dormitory town for workers at the nearby nuclear power station. Drawn by neoliberal promises of prosperity and a better life, many workers moved here to work at the new power station. A growing sense of collective unease and long silences broken only by strong gusts of wind shape the landscape of a town now utterly dependent on the power station for its survival.
- Kambá! by Carolina and Diana Kuzeluk
In an open space for migrants in Barcelona, a group of young people make a film to share their memories of their journey, their reflections on the European dream and their feelings of homesickness. Kambá! follows Souleymane as he anxiously awaits the outcome of his application for asylum. One day, however, shooting is interrupted when one character suddenly has to leave.
- Peter Dollar, by Luis Linhart
My grandfather disappeared 41 years ago and to this day he remains a mystery. He was born in the Bronx in 1917, fought in the Second World War, was a businessman, pilot, writer and millionaire. The people who knew him have different testimonies and different versions of the past, and the only documents left are a pile of fictional stories he wrote after the war for The New York Times. This is the search for what was lost and hidden, an attempt to reveal who David Linhart really was.
Documentary, like any other film genre, has the power to see the world through a range of different prisms. This session is made up of four such insights, four deeply personal glimpses into the lives of others.
We shall be joined by members of ESCAC and the creative teams behind the four films.