FANCINE TURNS ITS 31ST EDITION INTO A SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN FILM EXPERIMENT

Comedian and actor José Corbacho will host the inauguration gala that will open nine days of screenings and parallel activities

A festival of scientifically proved quality. That’s how the vice-chancellor of culture Tecla Lumbreras has summed up the new edition of Fancine, the Fantastic Film Festival of Málaga, that will celebrate its 31st birthday from the 10th to the 18th of November, destinating its agenda to science under the emblem of the Schrödinger kitty. A film-like experiment that will turn the Albéniz theater and other university venues into a lab where more than 90 titles across the 9 days of the contest will be screened.

The presentation of this anniversary with which this fantastic date recovers normality after turning thirty last year with sanitary restrictions has taken place this morning in the UMA Rectorate, with the presence of representatives of the collaborating institutions. Victor Gonzalez, the Culture delegate of the Provincial Council, has described the theme of this year as a “great success” and has referred to the festival as one of the greatest products of Malaga’s cultural agenda, while Luis Verde, councillor of the Youth Area of the City Council, has pointed out the volume and international reputation that, edition after edition, this event organised by the UMA wins. 

Furthermore, Lumbreras has been responsible for going over the contents of this cinephile homage that Fancine will pay to science after the pandemic. “We dedicate the 31st Fancine to the progress, knowledge and discoveries that has allowed us to be here. To the scientific method and, as usual, to the people dedicated to it. We literally owe them our life”, she has defended before pointing out the changes in this edition, which will have several titles related to science spread all around the showtime, rather than just one cycle dedicated to the theme.

The biggest surprise of this 31st edition comes in the form of a historical official section as, for the first time ever, Fancine will include in their competitive section an animated film (‘Belle’, the new film by the well-known Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda) and three Spanish productions, the biggest participation of national titles in the university festival since its creation. This trio of Spanish submissions, formed by ‘Veneciafrenia’ by Alex de la Iglesia; ‘La hija’, by Manuel Martín Cuencia; and ‘Visitante’, of the fresh director Alberto Evangelio, will compete for the 9.000 euros that this event will give to the best film along with the new projects by renowned directors such as Sion Sono, Ben Wheatly and Zhang Yimou.

The task of evaluating these ten works and awarding them will be done by the official jury, formed in this occasion by the North American producer Steven Bratter, the French actress Yara Pilartz and the Bloody Girls, the duo formed by Aída Mendez and Elena Lombao. As for the short films, this mission will be assigned to the youth jury formed by students from Andalusian public universities, who will decide which films will win the 3.000 euros prize in each category: live-action and animation. The awards with economic dotation will be completed by the audience of Fancine with their reviews during the sessions in Albéniz, that will give a total of 1.000 euros to the most voted film of the program.

Regarding the rest of the event, formed by 92 titles, there will be something for everyone, twenty debut features and more than a dozen of national premieres spread into the habitual categories of informative section, Horror Zone, Ánima Zone y Fanzriller. The core of the screenings will be, again, the Albéniz cinema, while free screenings will take place in the UMA Rectorate, such as CineAsia via the university aspect of the festival, and a broad catalogue of parallel activities that will take place in different venues of the Teatinos Campus, such as the Education and Psychology complex, the Communication Sciences faculty, the Faculty of Telecommunications and the Contenedor Cultural.

In between the events that complement the films of the event there will be contests (such as the well-known K-Pop contest), conferences about different themes, workshops, concerts, a planetarium in collaboration with the Malaga Astronomic Society and an art exhibition of the art director Nahia Fito.

Additionally, Fancine premiers a new location through a collaboration with the drive-in theatre Autocines Málaga, a recently opened space in the industrial zone of Intelhorce, with four screenings where we can highlight ‘Titane’, the Palme d’Or winner in the Cannes Festival and a 4K remaster of ‘The Day of the Beast’.

Moreover, the festival will repeat the formula with matinees on Friday, Saturday and Sunday day screenings in a timetable repeated from last year. Two of these sessions will consist of the ‘Family Sessions’, the part that the festival dedicates to children with two titles in relation to the theme: ‘Frankenweenie’ and ‘Wall-E’.

Differently from last year, there will be no online section in any platform, in a commitment to the face-to-face attendance that will give the festival a greater social character with several guests like the awarded North American illustrator Bill Plympton, the designer of this year’s cat stickers. This list is completed by the directors Javi Camino (‘Jacinto’), Raúl Cerezo y Fernando González (‘La pasajera’), Alberto Evangelio (‘Visitante’), Damian McCarthy (‘Caveat’) and Baptiste Drapeau (‘The Lodger’), that will have meetings with the audience after the screening of their films.

And two films directed by women will open and close the programme of screenings of this anniversary: ‘Silent Night’, by Camille Griffin, will turn on the projector of this 31st Fancine and ‘The Pink Cloud’, by Iuli Gerbase, will close this celebration of the best international fantastic films until autumn of 2022. The press conference has also been an opportunity to reveal one of the best hidden secrets by the organisation of the event: actor and comedian José Corbacho will be the host of the opening ceremony next Wednesday, thus fulfilling the objective of putting a comedic and colourful tone to this new cinematic birthday. In the same way, Malaga’s poet David Leo will close the event, known as being one of the most recent winners of Pasapalabra.

Tickets, that were released last Friday, can be acquired at a price of 3 euros in the Uniticket website and in the box-office of Albéniz (for the screenings programmed there), as the tickets for the drive-in theatre will be available in their website or their box office. Likewise, those who are interested can buy a voucher for ten different films at a price of 20 euros.

The meeting has finished with an invitation to the public by the vice-rectorate to participate in any of the activities or screenings of the festival to make sure that the kitty of Fancine is a survivor of the pandemic or if it has worn out one of its seven felines’ lives, not before closing with the revelation: “This cat is more alive than ever”, she concluded.