The International Documentary Film Festival of Barcelona continues to showcase, now in its 27th edition, the most authentic and committed proposals of a genre that “has always been a laboratory of experimentation, both in terms of form and exploration of themes and content,” comments Anna Petrus, artistic director of DocsBarcelona, to this newspaper. Agent of Happiness, a film that questions Bhutan’s label as the happiest country on the planet, opened on Thursday an event that will run until May 12 with a program consisting of 40 feature films and 10 shorts at the CCCB and the Cines Renoir Floridablanca as venues, and with the Filmin platform as a virtual window.
For Petrus, the importance of documentaries is essential because “it allows us to delve into complex realities” and he argues that “platforms play an important role in reaching the audience.” However, he warns that this genre “still requires private funding for creators to delve into the complexity of these realities freely.” He believes that currently, documentaries “are aligned with all the topics on the public agenda, and in this year’s edition we will see stories about female empowerment, AI and new technologies, and a major theme on colonialism related to power relationships and how History has been explained.”
In this edition of Docs, there are a total of ten works that address this latest issue and “reflect the violence left by Europeans and also raise awareness about the more contemporary great colonialisms such as the economic giant China and its influence over Asia”.
The contest has revamped its structure this year. From now on, Docs
The perspective of resilient women regarding the consequences of colonialism can be observed in films such as Mambar Pierrette, by Rosine Mbakam, or Daughter of Genghis, by Danish filmmakers Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als. The latter delves into the life of the leader of the Mongolian ultranationalist organization, Gerel Khas, whose aim is to cleanse Mongolia of Chinese corruption and oppression.
The new section Docs
One of the highlights of this edition will be the visit of the Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, who returns to the festival to present his new work. Architecton, premiered at the last Berlinale, is a poetic meditation on architecture that warns about the devastating impact of cement.
Another important visit will be that of the prestigious duo formed by the French documentarians Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, who will receive the Docs de Honor award and will lead a meeting and a retrospective in collaboration with the Filmoteca.
On the other hand, John Wilson, who will give a master class on his series How To with John Wilson, and the Catalan director Albert Serra, who will discuss his documentary about bullfighting Tardes de soledad, will be the main highlights of DocsBarcelona Industry, the industry section led by Èric Motjer, which will take place from May 6 to 10.
Motjer explains that this year’s programming is “a window into the world that we are, and the world to come.” And regarding the future of the sector, he highlights that in addition to AI, “there are a series of technologies such as virtual reality or augmented reality that are having a significant impact on documentary production,” technologies and projects where it will be necessary to find distribution and funding channels. “From DocsBarcelona, we will mainly facilitate the professional aspect to become a space for meeting and debating where the sector is headed in this regard, all under the umbrella of the brand we have created: I Docs, which will host all these projects exploring new technologies within documentary production,” he concludes.
