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FESTIVALS Spain

The growing Atlàntida Film Fest sets its sights on Europe

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- The eighth edition of the festival kicks off on Palma de Mallorca on Monday 25 June and simultaneously launches online via Filmin, the VoD site that boasts an ever-increasing audience

The growing Atlàntida Film Fest sets its sights on Europe
Histeria de Cataluña by Kikol Grau

The eighth edition of the Atlàntida Film Fest, organised by the Filmin VoD platform, gets under way on Monday 25 June and will unspool for an entire month, offering 83 titles on its online programme at affordable prices. That same day, those who happen to be on the beautiful Balearic island of Palma de Mallorca will also be able to pop into the various free screenings, concerts and events that, for the next week (until 1 July), will make up this superb gathering.

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In the words of Jaume Ripoll, the director of Atlàntida, “Our event is the biggest online film festival in Europe: it will bring an unprecedented programme of unseen films to Spain, and we will host five world premieres, with the clear intention of rejuvenating the audience and attracting them to our screens – traditional, brick-and-mortar ones (in Mallorca) as well as domestic ones.” As for the programme, the organisers have opted to do away with sections and instead divide it into thematic concepts in order to “embrace the diversity” of modern cinema: said themes are Generation, Walls and Frontiers, Historical Memory, Politics and Controversy, and Identity. In addition, there will be a retrospective of the works of Barcelona-born director Kikol Grau, who will be premiering his latest opus: Histeria de Cataluña.

Within the mouth-watering programme of the 2018 Atlàntida Film Festival, the titles that we would recommend are Yo la busco, a kind of contemporary After Hours helmed by first-timer Sara Gutiérrez and starring a passionate Dani Casellas (Best Actor in the Zonazine section of the most recent Málaga Film Festival); the world premiere of Retorno by Marcos Callejo; Croatia’s A Brief Excursion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Igor Bezinovic; the unnerving debut by Katharina WyssSarah Plays a Werewolf [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Katharina Wyss
film profile
]
 (Switzerland/Germany); the drama Colo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teresa Villaverde
film profile
]
 by Portugal’s Teresa Villaverde; the acclaimed Austrian documentary The Waldheim Waltz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruth Beckermann
film profile
]
, directed by Ruth Beckermann; the indescribable French movie The Wild Boys [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bertrand Mandico
film profile
]
, which has already gained cult status; and the magnificent Holiday [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Victoria Carmen Sonne
film profile
]
, a co-production between Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, helmed by Isabella Eklöf, which was first presented at Sundance.

Other Continental titles that will be enjoying their Spanish premieres thanks to this festival (which boasts the support of the MEDIA programme), and which tackle LGBT rights just as the pride marches are getting under way, are Queerama [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(UK) by Daisy Asquith; McKellen: Playing the Part [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Joe Stephenson (UK); Grimsey, a road movie across Iceland, directed by and starring Spain’s Richard García and Raúl PorteroMr Gay Syria [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Germany/Turkey/France) by Ayse Toprak; and Out [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Denis Parrot, about various young people who film their experience of coming out. Finally, we should highlight a clutch of other must-see titles, such as Jean François and the Meaning of Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, the debut feature by Catalan filmmaker Sergi Portabella (see the news); the Turkish effort (in co-production with the Netherlands) Meteors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gürcan Keltek
film profile
]
 by Gürcan KeltekBarbet Schroeder’s documentary The Venerable W [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbet Schroeder
film profile
]
, staged by France and Switzerland and shot in Myanmar; and the surprising French-Belgian doc So Help Me God [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Libon and Yves Hinant
film profile
]
 by Jean Libon and Yves Hinant, which will finally be available for Spanish viewers to enjoy, after it was first presented at the most recent San Sebastián Film Festival.

To find out more about the eighth Atlàntida Film Festival, click here.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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