Arouca Film Festival with 41 films from 13 countries

The 16th edition of the Arouca Film Festival starts this Wednesday, and until Sunday, it will compete in 41 films from 12 countries, in a selection that includes ten works in the new category of human rights and four made with mobile phones.

“In the competitive sessions will be announced new projects, new directors, independent productions and works already consecrated and of recognized value that usually are not distributed in the traditional circuits of cinema”, reveals João Rita, director of the festival organized by Cineclube of Arouca.

After recording a record number of entries for this edition, by receiving 785 applications and thus adding to the 2018 pre-selection another 102 films than in 2017, this year’s competitive section stands out for the “high degree of professionalism in the which refers to technical and human resources “.

The newly created category of human rights, which debuted in this issue, reached “unexpected levels of participation”, since among the candidate films, there were 96 registered people who adopted this social register, of which ten were selected for the contest.

Regarding the new category of films created in ‘smartphone’, 56 were the works candidates and four that went to the competitive stage.

“We received very realistic and technically very well done works,” says João Rita. “Producers and filmmakers do not spare their efforts to realize their short films, creating true works of art that yearn to see the light of day and access competitive circuits,” he says.

Among the films in these circumstances, the director of Arouca Film Festival highlights seven short films: “Summer Run” by Italian Cecilia Brianza; “Impasse” by Russian Alina Mikhailova; “Carga”, by the Portuguese Luís Campos; “Rafeiro”, also by Lusa Cátia Silva; “Bakit”, by Kyrgyzstan Meerim Dogdurbekova; “Are you volleyball?” By Iranian Mohammad Bakhshi; and “M.A.M.O.N. – Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide” by Uruguayan Alejandro Damiani, in a co-production between Uruguay and Mexico.

According to Cátia Camisão, programmer of the festival, this is a question of “a set of films of high interest”, among which fiction predominates as the most adopted genre, followed by the documentary and the experimental one.

In addition to the competitive section, Arouca Film Festival 2018 will also include several thematic sessions and a training and pedagogical program composed of workshops, workshops, tertúlias and artistic performances, “always aiming at the training and training of new audiences”.

Most of these activities will be developed in municipal schools, such as the workshop where, after a film is projected and an explanation of the processes involved, students will have to build a story board for their own stories.

Other highlights of the program will be the screening of the film “Bad Investigate”, in a session with the presence of the director and actor Luís Ismael, producer and actor JD Duarte and actress Laura Galvão, as well as the projection of “Famel Top Secret” , which will be accompanied by a concentration of old models of this motorcycle brand.