There is An Audience!
Of course the previous post about the financial cuts of the TV3, the Catalan public television makes you sad as you know that there is an audience for creative documentaries in Catalunya and Spain in general. Which makes me praise the Documental del Mes, Documentary of the Month, that is an initiative by DocsBarcelona, born as a CinemaNet Europe’s project, in 2004. Since 2007, the development in Spain is led exclusively by Parallel 40. This piece of fine film culture politics is ”creating” an audience!
Quality documentaries are shown in 94 places ”in its original version subtitled in Catalan (for the audience of Catalunya, Comunitat Valenciana, and Illes Balears) and subtitled in Spanish for the rest of Spain, Chile and Colombia. Latest addition is El Salvador.
I asked Laia Aubia, ”Cap de Projecte”, to give me some figures. She mentioned that the Colombian ”Amazona” by Clare Weiskopf, produced by Nicolas van Hemelryck has had 77 screenings in Spain – around 12 more to come – with 5.115 spectators with 1551 online, and more than 32.000 at Colombian screenings, whereas the Danish ”Venus” by Lea Glob and Mette Carla Albrechtsen attracted 4.300 in Spanish cinemas and 8000 online.
Take a look at the website and you will see titles like Sean McAllister’s ”A Syrian Love Story”, Maite Alberdi’s ”Tea Time”, ”The Promise” by Karin Steinberger and Marcus Vetter and 2018 starts with Rahul Jain’s masterpiece ”Machines”. Almost all films that goes for the Documentary of the Month has been at the DocsBarcelona festival. The 2018 edition of the festival will take place May 16 till 27.
