- The first film screening, based on Galician animated films, will take place on Friday 1st December and will see The Apostle projected in the Shulman Auditorium at Queen’s College
- There will be a further four free screenings, one per month, until April
- The series of screenings is organised by The John Rutherford Centre for Galician Studies with the Galician Film Forum’s collaboration
Oxford, 28th November 2017. Between December and April the University of Oxford will host the film series ‘Galician Cinema Today’, a series of screenings put together to bring contemporary Galician cinema to this university city. The activities are organised by The John Rutherford Centre for Galician Studies with the Galician Film Forum’s collaboration and support from the Xunta de Galicia’s General Secretary of Linguistic Policy and the University of Oxford.
The screenings will begin next Friday (1st December) with an evening focused on Galician animated cinema. Fernando Cortizo’s ‘The Apostle’ will be screened in the Shulman Auditorium at Queen’s College (18:00, High Street, Oxford, OX1 4AQ). All of the films will be screened in their original language with English subtitles. Entry is free, but tickets should be reserved in advance.
The series will continue in January with Os fenómenos by Alfonso Zarauza, a fictional film. In February Lois Patiño’s Costa da morte will be screened by way of introduction to some of the new narratives in Galician cinema. In March there will be an evening dedicated to short films and in April César Souto and Luis Avilés’ Os días afogados will be screened in a session focused on documentaries.
Animation
Starting ‘Galician Cinema Today’ with a film like The Apostle is certainly not a random choice. Indeed, one of the curiosities of Galician cinema in the first years of this milennium was the develpment of the animation industry. It was against this backdrop that The Apostle, an ambitious project led by Artefacto Producións that took five years, was created. The Apostle is the first stop motion animated film in Europe made using stereoscopic production techniques.
Over 200 professionals from the world of animation and 3D modelling worked to make this film a reality. Another interesting point to note about this film is the new way in which it was filmed: the main actors didn’t just lend their voices to the story’s characters, they also acted out the scenes in advance so that they could inspire the animators with their movements and expressions.
The work behind The Apostle was recognised with numerous prizes including Crowd’s Choice at the Annecy Festival in 2013, first prize at the Expotoons Festival in Buenos Aires and the Cinehorizontes Festival in Marseilles. Other recognition has come in the form of the Judge’s choice at Fantasporto, the Prize for Best SoundTrack and the Crowd’s Choice at the Mostra de Lisboa.
The John Rutherford Centre for Galician Studies
The John Rutherford Centre for Galician Studies at the University of Oxford, part of the General Secretary for Linguistic Policy’s network of lectorships, is situated at Queen’s College where it is part of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. Founded in 1991 under the leadership of Dr. John Rutherford, it was the first higher education institution to offer Galician studies outside Spain. It is now one of three centres in the UK, the others in Bangor in Wales and Cork in Ireland. As well as teaching and investigating Galician language, literature and culture, the Centre for Galician Studies also organise a programme of cultural academic activities each year and this series of film screenings forms part of that.
Galician Film Forum
The GFF was born in 2015 when a group of Galicians who had emigrated to London came together to bring Galician cinema to London. The GFF functions in three different ways, as an exhibition platform, as an insight into diasporic creators working in the UK and as a space to reflect on Galician cinema and culture on more universal terms.
