Parallel 40: Festivals
The way to the audience can go through the showing of documentaries on a regular basis as Parallel 40 has initiated with the ”Documentary of the Month”, see above. Or it can be through festivals, the more and more popular film cultural event approach to documentaries in a time where especially young people have given up on television and prefer to go social, to the cinema, for information and experience.
After many years of the DocsBarcelona as a meeting point for professionals, who bring their projects and present them to potential buyers from television and funds from all over the world, Joan Gonzalez realised what had always been a dream for him: to make a festival. The DocsBarcelona was enlarged and the festival is now after five editions up and running on its way to establish a loyal audience in a metropole like Barcelona. The selection structure, as it is now, includes sections like ”Le Dernier Repas” (a well known filmmaker makes a selection of films that has meant something for him or her, in 2011 Peter Greenaway did so), ”History”, ”Panorama”, ”Finisterrae” (more experimental films), South American films, catalan films, current affairs and films for children and youngsters. In 2011, the festival was for the first time, competitive.
The Parallel 40 professionalism in ”making” festivals is now also being profited by Memorimage, a festival for archive based documentaries based on memories. I have been present for two years, as readers of this blog will know, and wow there have been some masterpieces to watch for people in and around Reus, the hosting town one hour south of Barcelona: Terence Davies ”Of Time and City” (Liverpool), ”A film Unfinished” by Yael Hersonski and ”Cooking History” by Peter Kerekes.
DocsBarcelona is in February, Mémorimage in November.
