“La Hojarasca” (“The Undergrowth”) by Macu Machín took home the highest MiradaCanaria award on the 17thth MiradasDoc, which took place from March 15th to 22nd in Tenerife, Spain.
Produced by El Viaje Movies, Machin’s debut feature has been winning raves since its world premiere at the Berlinale Forum, winning Best Spanish Film and Director at the Malaga Film Festival’s Zonazine, a sidebar for edgier and sometimes minors.
The jury praised the document for its “delicate and evocative portrait of three sisters and their deep bond of affection for each other and their homeland.” In it, two elderly sisters join a third to discuss the shared inheritance of land as the rumble of an active volcano echoes nearby.
Part of a booming cinema in the Canary Islands, “The Undergrowth” explores questions of “id, belonging and the dynamics of where my family and I come from,” said Machín Selection.
A special highlight in Mirada Canaria was “Bloom” (Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado, “They Carrie Losses of Life”), which continues the filmmaker duo’s exploration of the fable – understood as narratives that shape the consciousness of a society. Shot in grainy 16mm and digital formats, “Bloom” is a fanciful exploration of the legend of St. Brendan Island, the perception of which was so strong that expeditions were mounted to find it even though it never existed.
Described by Selection as a “transfer”, the hybrid documentary “Between the Revolutions” received Mirada Worldwide. It describes a passionate (fictional) friendship between two medical students in 1970s Bucharest, the Iranian Zahra and the Romanian María, narrated in the letters they wrote to each other in the following decade.
“In its seventeenth year, our competition continues to present thought-provoking works of art, offering a space for reflection amid the social and political challenges of this moment. It’s important to support a program that uses documentaries to connect with the world’s need for information and understanding,” said MiradasDoc competition director David Baute.
“Sergei Loznitsa’s presence at Miradasdoc introduced a new mix of reality and fiction into the exhibition. Known for his unique film collections, Loznitsa inspired us to explore history candidly, seeing it as a guide to the future,” he said of the Ukrainian filmmaker who received the competition’s Personal Vision Award in recognition of his outstanding career.
In a chat at the festival, Loznitsa revealed that he was working on a film about current events in Ukraine, which will be released next year. Recognized for his meticulous work with archive images, he defined how he finds and selects these materials: “It will depend on the film; much of the archive comes from the Russian state, there may be many well-preserved materials, allowing for good analysis.”
The MiradasDoc Market, which took place from March 20th to 22nd, established itself as a significant home for Latin American and African cinema, given the proximity of the Canary Islands to the African continent.
The head of MiradasDoc Market, Lara Sousa, stated: “Just like the films presented in the competition, the projects that begin their development in our laboratories function as exclusive lifeboats in today’s audiovisual world. They suggest cinema not just as leisure, but as a great space for information and enrichment for the spectator.”
“MiradasDoc Market is consolidating itself as a meeting point for audiovisual initiatives from the South, two areas very close to the Canary Islands: Africa and Latin America, which articulate a distinct and unique language of documentary cinema”, he added.
The market also hosted the One to One Tenerife networking event, organized by Tenerife Film Fee, where more than 400 business conferences were held, according to the market.
Concha Díaz, coordinator of the Tenerife Cinema Tax, highlighted the importance of the MiradasDoc Market as a platform for the development of documentary cinema: “Participating in the MiradasDoc Market is always an excellent meeting point to learn about the initiatives of local production companies, and also to publicize the financing opportunities and the support that we will offer from the Cinema Tax to the initiatives that come to the competition.”
Given the Canary Islands’ temperate climate, generous incentives (45% to 54% deduction rates for filming limited to €36 million ($39 million) for a film and €18 million ($19.5 million) for a single TV episode), a quick With the growing inventive sector and infrastructure, the archipelago has already attracted a number of high-level initiatives.
MiradasDoc Winners:
Mirada Canaria Award
“The undergrowth” (“La Hojarasca”, Macu Machín, Canary Islands)
Special mention: “Bloom” (Helena Girón and Samuel Delgado)
Look around the world
“Between Revolutions”, Vlad Petri
Biggest DocSur Documentary
“Los Vencedores”, Pablo Aparo
MiradasDoc Market Awards:
Afrolatam Laboratory:
“Le Parcours,” (Arice Siapi, France, Cameroon)
Preciosa Media
“Retoños del Zapoteco” (Mónica Martínez Ruiz, Mexico)
Sheffield
“Le Parcours,” (Arice Siapi, France, Cameroon)
Subbabel
“In my father’s house” (Rachida El Garani, Belgium, Morocco)
Press
“She is exhausting like a brick” (Rogena Tarek, Egypt)
DOCSP
“My Father’s Ten Lands,” (Liliana Sulzbach, Brazil)
DOCSMX
“Viscitudes of the Light” (Marcel Beltrán, Brazil, Cuba)
