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Cinemas of the South

Aruna Vasudev

Cines del Sur, Cinemas of the South, is what the magical city of Granada in southern Spain, chose to call its film festival set up three years ago. Such was the preparation that clearly went into it that today it can hold its own against the many long-established Festivals anywhere in the world.

Why Cinemas of the South only? Partly its own history — Granada was ruled for six hundred years by the Moors and the indescribably magnificent Alhambra is within walking distance of the city centre and the links are still perceptible — partly the fact that Morocco lies just a few sea miles away, but principally the vision of those that created the Festival. They chose the cinemas of the South, they say, "for the beauty of each region, the mysteries of each country’s history, the musicality of distant latitudes, the drama of other worlds…"

Not content with showing the films alone, they try and bring each of these three regions alive through different events that complement the festival. For the second time this year, was a special programme for schools to encourage students to develop a critical eye and enhance not only their ability to think critically about the images they are watching but equally about the values and cultures those images reflect; to think interculturally as much as cinematically. AulaSur, as this programme is called, tries to "provide young people with a vision of other realities that form part of today’s world…". For them, as for the many visitors to the Festival from Granada and from beyond the seas, was a four-part photo exhibition from China of different works by Zhang Yuan plus a music video by Cui Jian, perhaps the earliest music video in China made in 1991.

The photos from the short films Zhang Yuan made vary from images of Tiananmen Square to the sex change operation of one of his actors, shot seven years apart. He wrote that he hoped through this exhibition "to fix the flowing pictures from my movies into photos one by one and record the days that we will never, never forget". Two more exhibitions beckoned: Abandoned Spaces by Dalia Khamissy of spaces in Lebanon — homes, buildings, mosques — all invaded by the war and then abandoned; the presence of film images in art centres and museums in the works of Argentinean David Lamel – talked of as the first post-national artist.

How much can the mind absorb, how much time is there for this in addition to the many films, and the many museums, churches, squares, cafes and restaurants, the delicious streets to wander in, the Alhambra which one can return to again and again...

There is a surfeit of offerings at the Cines del Sur! The Festival also held four workshops, on animation by the Andalusian filmmaker Rocio Huertas, one on acting, another on video creation only for women by Egyptian Amal Ramsis, herself a director, journalist and editor and Spanish-Arabic translator. As if this were not enough, there was also the third meeting of the Southern Film Festivals, another initiative of the Granada film festival to bring the Festivals of the South together (The Trivandrum Film Festival is a founding member), and a co-production meeting for Andalusian and international producers and directors. Shivajee Chandrabhushan whose Frozen won the Best Director plus the Audience award last year, came back this year for the co-production meeting with his project which is already fairly well advanced. He accepted the Audience prize for this year’s winner, the animation film $9.99 by Tatia Rosenthal, who was not present, with a charming speech where he said, among other things, that filmmakers must accept their responsibility in this fractured world. The main prize was taken by The Other Bank, a moving and very strong film by Georgian George Ovashvili.

Another remarkable aspect of this festival is their publications of at least two solid books in Spanish and in English. This year there was one on Souleyman Cisse, the Malian director who first brought African cinema to the international stage, winning the Jury prize at Cannes in 1987 with his Brightness. (He also came to International Film Festival of India in Bombay in the 90s but has never, alas, been back.) Entitled With the Eyes of Eternity it is the first book on this remarkable man to whom the Festival paid homage this time. The other book on a theme which paralleled a section of the festival, is on Foreign Filmmakers in Cuban Cinema of the 1960s — Outsiders in Paradise. The films focused on the Cuban Revolution seen through the eyes of foreign filmmakers.

The films were everywhere, in quite unusual variety. And the screenings themselves were special as they moved out in the evenings, from the theatres into the open-air. Two screenings every evening, one against the walls of the great Cathedral in the centre of Granada, one against the walls of the Alhambra where the opening and closing ceremonies were also held. The Taiwanese super-hit Cape No. 7 opened the festival, the very political Mexican Tear This Heart Out, closed it.

Apart from the official competition with a jury composed of people from all three continents plus one from Italy, and for the first time this year a Netpac award in recognition of this organisation which has been assiduously promoting Asian cinema in Asia and around the world — were sections of films on Andalusians and the South, a Mediterranean section, a fascinating one on Nollywood, the Nigerian video boom which has become a remarkable showcase for African popular culture and has injected a new energy into African filmmakers. It is a little like what is happening here in India in Malegaon, but in a pan-African manner. Participating in the round table was Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima. She is the founder and president of the African Film Academy and was a member of the Festival jury, along with actress Rana Sultan from Jordan, Aruna Vasudev from India, Italian Leonardo de Franceschi who teaches film at Rome Tre University, with Arturo Ripstein, the most widely-known and highly respected Mexican director as jury president. Such an eclectic group meant that the jury discussions were long, argumentative though not acrimonious, and fascinating as each one brought their knowledge and experience of their countries or regions to the table, but not necessarily a thorough grounding in the cinemas of the other regions. It is an occupational hazard when you put together a jury to judge films not as familiar and well-known to all as the European or American cinema. This, precisely, is what the Granada festival is trying to change. Through bringing film people from the three regions together to familiarise them with each other’s cinemas. The attempt alone is heightening awareness of the preoccupation we in these three continents still have with the west, and making a concerted effort to overcome it.