The starting gun sounds for the fifth edition of D’A
The Barcelona International Auteur Film Festival, from the 24th of April to the 3rd of May, kicks off with “Saint Laurent” and features more than 70 films as well as workshops and conferences
For the fifth year running, D’A – The Barcelona International Auteur Film Festival – will once again feature “the world’s best films, the biggest names in contemporary film and the best in local production”. This year’s festival will take place from the 24th of April to the 3rd of May, the majority of the programme taking place in the Aribau Cines and the CCCB, with other screenings in the Filmoteca and parallel activities in the SGAE offices on the Passeig de Colom.
The inaugural film will be Saint Laurent, by French film maker Bertrand Bonello. The film, which was an entry in the last Cannes Festival, is a most unconventional biopic on the life of the revolutionary 70s fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and does not shun from portraying the character’s darker side. The director himself will attend the festival in order to present the film. As per usual, the festival will consist of two fixed sections. On the one hand Direccions, dedicated to notable contemporary film makers whose careers are already consolidated. The other, Talents, will offer an examination of recent film with directors with less than three titles to their name.
The Direccions section will feature a selection of the season’s highlights, including The Blue Room, an adaptation by Mathieu Almaric of a novel by George Simenon that falls somewhere between ‘noir’ film and romantic drama, The Duke of Burgundy, a submissive role-playing game by upcoming British star Peter Strickland, Hill of Freedom, an exploration of human nature through communication and love by renowned South Korean film maker Hong Sang-soo, Manglehorn, a thriller with comic elements starring Al Pacino, and White Bird in a Blizzard, featuring upcoming actress Shailene Woodley. The Talents section, for its part, will include Catalan films such as Les amigues de l’Àgata (Agatha’s Friends), which deals with friendship and the end of adolescence, the Russian political drama The Fool, the road movie with oneiric elements They Have Escaped, recent winner in the Finnish Film Academy Awards (JUSSI), and Juana a los 12 (Juana at 12), a psychological study into the changes that occur during puberty.
In addition to these two fixed sections, the festival will include two further sections, Futurs (im)possibles, dedicated to works that feature different proposals relating to science fiction, with titles such as Under the skin, Young Ones, Noah’s Ark, and Searching for Meritxell, and Transicions, a section that includes films that have not yet been definitively confirmed but which are not starting from zero either, among them Las altas presiones, Les combattants, Güeros, Los exiliados románticos, Corn Island and El camí més llarg per tornar a casa. The D’A will also add to the retrospective that the Filmoteca is currently dedicating to Alain Resnais with the screening of the film maker’s latest work Aimer, Boire et Chanter, among others. The festival’s closing film will be Mia Hanses-Love’s Eden, a generational portrait with a spotlight on 90s French electronic music.
In addition to film screenings, the D’A will also feature a series of parallel activities, such as the Primeras Jornadas Profesionales sobre Estrategias de Márquetin de Cine Independiente (First Professional Conferences on Independent Film Marketing Strategies) and the hosting of the first Campus D’A, aimed at upcoming film critics and journalists. There will also be a series of workshops and conferences held in the SGAE offices and the CCCB which will include a round-table discussion on the role of the critic in film festivals, a conference on authorship and genres, another dealing with science fiction which will feature some of the film makers participating in the Futurs (im)possibles section, and a professional production workshop with Lastor Media, producers of the film 10.000 Km.
D’A – The Barcelona International Auteur Film Festival
When: from the 24th of April up to the 3rd of May
Tickets: 7,5 € each session
Where Aribau Club Cinemes, CCCB, Filmoteca de Catalunya and SGAE
More information here