- A Raia: Cinema from the Border will take place on 2nd December at 7pm in King’s College London – tickets are available for free on Eventbrite
- Mulleres da Raia by Diana Gonçalves, A Raia by Iván Castiñeiras and Os Salteadores by Abi Feijó will be screened at the event
- All three films will be screened in their original languages with English subtitles
London, 24th November 2016. The border between Galicia and Portugal, a raia in Galician, is the theme that unites the films to be screened at the fifth edition of the Galician Film Forum (GFF) on Friday 2nd December at King’s College London [19:00, Strand Campus, WC2R 2LS]. Diana Gonçalves’ Mulleres da Raia, A Raia by Iván Castiñeiras and the animated short Os salteadores by Abi Fejió will be screened at the event. Diana Gonçalves will join the event by videoconference at the end of the evening.
The films will be screened in their original languages with English subtitles activated. Presentations will be given both in Galician and English. Entry is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance here. A full programme for the event can be viewed on the GFF’s website (galicianfilmforum.gal). The event is supported by King’s College London and is held in collaboration with the Short Films Agency in Portugal.
For the first time the GFF will be screening work produced by non-Galician directors: this is because the aim of this event is to show how people think on both sides of the border that unites and separates Galicia and Portugal. Mulleres da Raia is a documentary focused on telling the stories of Portuguese and Galician women who transported contraband under the dictatorships of Franco and Salazar. Emigration at this time saw men leave their wives in charge of their children and land, a miserable existence that they tried to make better by trafficking contraband.
Mulleres da Raia by Diana Gonçalves had its premiere in 2009 and has received numerous awards since, including a Mestre Mateo for Best Documentary from the Academia Galega do Audiovisual (2009), the Minhoto Cinema Prize at the Filminho Festival (2009), the Press Prize for Best Film at Caminhos do Cinema Português (2009) and second place at the International Ethnographic Documentary Festival Espiello (2011).
The second of the films, A Raia, is a short documentary whose main characters are Pepe, from Tameirón, and Fernando, from Casares in the Montesinho Natural Park. They worked together for almost twenty years, but stopped seeing each other when the border disappeared. This piece by Iván Castiñeiras won a Special Mention “Holds great promise for the future” in the official section of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2013. It has been screened at DocLisboa (2012), L´Alternativa (2013), Cineuropa in Santiago de Compostela (2013), Playdoc (2014), Eslovenia Isola Cinema Film Festival (2014) and at the Festival Etnográfico de Belmonte, Beira –Baixa in Portugal (2015).
Os salteadores is an animated short that adapts the homonymous tale of Jorge de Sena, set in the 40’s, when many Republicans were seeking refuge in the mountains to the north of Portugal after the Spanish Civil War. This piece, now twenty years old, is considered to be a classic in the world of Portuguese animation and has earned the following awards: Cidade de Espinho at Cinanima (1993), the Judges’ Special Award at Cartoon d’Or’94, the Espiga de Oro in Valladolid (1994) and a Mention of Honour in Annecy (1995)
The directors
Diana Gonçalves (Tui, 1986) has a degree in Audiovisual Studies from the University of Vigo. In her professional career, she has worked as a producer and has also independently produced several documentaries, including Mulleres da raia, Retrato encontro (2009), Retrato memoria (2010), Retrato deriva (2011), Retrato paisaje (2012), Retrato espejo (2013) and Uma casa portuguesa (en producción).
Iván Castiñeiras (Ourense, 1980) has studied art history, cinema, sound and direction in centres across Spain, Portugal and France. Between 2006 and 2011 he worked in sound production and post-production on fictional pieces and documentaries. At the moment he lives in Barcelona where he works as a freelance sound and photography director at the same time as teaching at the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC) and the Afilm School. He has directed A Raia (2012) and Où est la jungle? (2015).
Abi Feijó (Braga, Portugal, 1956) is one of the most iconic members of the Portuguese animation community. In 1987 he founded the studio Filmógrafo whose focus is on traditional animation and, before it closed in 2002, had produced about fifty pieces, many of them produced by Feijó himself. His professional career has seen him win over 40 international awards that recognise his work as a director and a producer. His filmography includes the following titles: Oh que calma (1985), A noite saiu à rua (1987), Os salteadores (1993), Fado lusitano (1995), Clandestino (2000) and Nossa Senhora da Apresentação (2015).
Galician Film Forum
In 2015 a group of Galicians, who had emigrated to London, joined together to start the GFF, a space for promoting Galician cinema in the British capital. The GFF has three main functions – to serve as an exhibition platform, to function as a place where Galician creators in the UK can show their work and to be a space for reflecting on cinema and Galician culture.
– Photos (download rar archive)