Interviews, Reviews, and Festival Reports

At some point last year, WordPress removed the ability have lists of links in the side bar (at least with the blog design I’m using – I don’t know if it’s possible with a different template, and tbh can’t be bothered to faff around finding out). It used to be possible to add a list widget and set it to a category of links already saved in the back end. I can see that lists can be added but, as far as I can tell, you have to add each thing individually rather using a dropdown to apply a group of links in one go. So, if I have to add stuff individually, I think it’s better to do it in a post (so it can’t disappear in its entirety again) and then see if I can just add a link to this post of links in the side bar.

I added the main links to my writing elsewhere to the About page at the end of 2024 – those links should take you to all of my writing on the named sites. However, I also want individual links to pieces, mainly because I find it easier to find stuff when I’ve saved a direct link. I’m going to use some of the same categories I previously had in the side bar to divide things up – interviews, festival reports, reviews – but instead of grouping the reviews by the year they were written, I’m going to divide them into some sub-categories where there are multiple pieces that could be grouped together (e.g. reviews of documentaries, Spanish films, films relating to ‘el otro cine español’). Some may appear in more than one sub-category.

I’m also going to link to pieces written either here or on the old blog where I’ve focussed on a single film (excluding the Carlos Saura Challenge because that’s a series of linked posts) – they’re not really ‘reviews’ per se (they tend to be more expansive, and sometimes relate to films that I’ve reviewed but had more to say than would be appropriate in review format, but sometimes it’s just something I wrote after watching). I’ll put blog posts in with the reviews but mark them with *.

Continue reading “Interviews, Reviews, and Festival Reports”

IberoDocs 2022: 6th-17th April

IberoDocs’ 9th edition will take place 6th-10th April for in-person events (in Edinburgh and Glasgow) and 11th-17th online, with seven feature documentaries and a shorts programme. Their opening film will be Neus Ballús’s Sis dies corrents / The Odd Job Men – which is on my want-to-see list, although I’ll have to wait as it’s one of two films that aren’t included in the online programme.

The theme connecting the chosen Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American films is ‘territory, belonging, and migration’. You can find further details of the films in the programme/schedule, which can be downloaded here. The prices for the online presentation are either £10 for a single film, or £20 for a full pass.

 

Catalan Film Festival, 19th Nov-6th Dec 2020

Catalan Film Festival 2020

Well, this is something nice in 2020! Cinemaattic are simultaneously holding their Catalan Film Festival at various locations in Scotland and online between 19th November and 6th December.

The programme offers a range of new and classic features, four programmes of shorts, and a series of talks/Q&As – all of which will be available online. You can buy tickets for strands of films (the links are within the programme page), or a festival pass that covers everything will only set you back £10/11€. I have bought one of those – for more than two weeks of access, and the sheer number of films, that’s really good value.

It looks like an admirably diverse set of titles. I’m hoping that I will manage to catch Luis López Carrasco’s El año de descubrimiento (which I mentioned way back last year, and have already missed at least one chance of watching – I will confess that my patience with very long films is somewhat diminished of late but I’ll try not to let that put me off), and I’ve also heard good things about My Mexican Bretzel (dir. Nuria Giménez Lorang), and Las niñas (dir. Pilar Palomero – who also has a retrospective of her shorts). I will watch as many of the shorts as I can because they are something that I’ve missed since I stopped attending film festivals.