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Europe and the Mediterranean Freedom of expression MedFilm Festival Social inclusion and fight against discriminations Socio-economic issues and migrations Voices and images archive

Informe General II. The New Abduction of Europe

Director: Pere Portabella

Country: Spain | Year: 2015 | Duration: 126 ′

The second part of one of Pere Portabella’s historical works, “Informe general sobre unas cuestiones de interés para una proyección pública”, released in 1976 in conjunction with the beginning of the political transition process after Franco’s death. This second Informe comes in the context of a serious systemic crisis of a cultural, economic-financial, political and energy nature. And it is above all a testimony of the way in which civil society is emerging from the crisis with a new protagonism of citizen, which simply consists in the citizens’ rapprochement with politics.

Born in Figueres in 1927, Pere Portabella has maintained his political commitment with all the protest movements against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco since the 1960s. Elected senator in the first democratic elections after Franco’s death, he was also a member of the Parliament of Catalonia. At the head of Films 59, he has produced emblematic films of Spanish cinema such as Carlos Saura’s “I monelli” (1959), Marco Ferreri’s “La carrozzella” (1960) and Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana (1960). As a director, he has been active for over forty years, combining the legacy of avant-garde culture with a language of rupture. The only Spanish artist present at Documenta XI in Kassel in 2002, in 2008 he received an honorary degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. His works have been presented in prestigious international festivals and in museums such as MoMA, Center Pompidou, Reina Sofia Museum and Tate Modern.

MedFilm Festival 2010 // Open Eyes



		
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Africa and the Mediterranean Freedom of expression Human rights, identity and citizenship MedFilm Festival Socio-economic issues and migrations Voices and images archive Youth and the Mediterranean

Le jardin d’essai

Director: Dania Reymond

Cast: Samir El Hakim, Sonia Amori, Louiza Nehar, Abdelkader Hamadaine, Yassine Hadj-Henni, Zohir Chabounia, Akram Djeghim, Redouane Boukachabia, Chahrazad Kracheni, Amel Hanifi, Djamel Aouane, Yanis Saadiza, Aya Hamdi, Hamdi Ahmed, Abdenour Bradai

Country: Algeria, France | Year: 2016 | Duration: 42 ′

In a tropical park in Algiers, Samir, a young director, helps his actors during rehearsals. His next film will tell the story of the youth of a besieged city. While at work, the film’s cast finds themselves confronted with the same questions as their characters.

Dania Reymond

Born in Algeria in 1982, Dania Reymond studies at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Marseille and continues her post-graduate studies at the National Higher School of Fine Arts in Lyon and at Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts. For his short film Jeanne (2012), he receives the StudioCollector award. The Essay Garden wins the Youth Jury Award at the 14th Brive Film Festival and has its Italian premiere at MedFilm.

MedFilm Festival 2016 // Amore & Psiche



		
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Human rights, identity and citizenship MedFilm Festival Voices and images archive

The Silence

Director: Farnoosh Samadi, Ali Asgari

Cast: Fatma Alakus, Cahide Ozel, Valentina Carnelutti

Country: Italy-France | Year: 2016 | Duration: 14 ‘

Fatma and her mother are Kurdish refugees in Italy. When they visit the hospital, Fatma has to translate what the doctor says to her mother. But he fails and closes in a long silence.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“The creation of any work of art is directly linked to the emotion of the artist. His work, in fact, can be a reflection of his feelings and his experiences, not only as an artist but also as a human being. Perhaps the artist discovers part of his life in his works. This short film is intimately linked to our lives. We moved to Italy for university and as migrants we have many experiences that inspired us to make this film. We chose to tell a simple story about communication because this aspect has symbolic meaning for us. We believe that language proficiency plays an important role in communication between humans, but in a context of migration it plays an even more essential role. In this short film, we wanted to represent the universe of migrants and their confrontation with a new life after arriving in a new country. We focused on a migrant child because we believe that children are silent witnesses to what is happening around them. ” Farnoosh Samadi, Ali Asgari

MedFilm Festival 2010 // Cortometraggi





Categories
Europe and the Mediterranean Human rights, identity and citizenship MedFilm Festival Social inclusion and fight against discriminations Socio-economic issues and migrations Voices and images archive

General report

Director: Pere Portabella

Country: Spagna | Year: 1977 | Lenght: 154′

On November 20, 1975, Francisco Franco died. Finally, Spain can slowly transform itself into a democracy. Thus begins the period called “transición”, which ends for some on 6 December 1978 with the ratification of the Spanish Constitution; for others with the electoral victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in 1982, after a fascist coup attempt the year before.


“Informe general sobre unas cuestiones de interés para una proyección pública” covers the period preceding the nation’s first free elections after Franco, on June 15, 1977 – an event that is at the same time very real, if a little theatrical “, which led to Portabella to approach the project as if it were a piece of fiction. He was certainly not a disinterested subject: Portabella himself was a candidate in the elections, and would have taken part in the drafting of the Constitution of ’78.

MedFilm Festival 2010 // Open Eyes