15/03/2024 - After its first decade, the Oviedo festival reaffirms its strong commitment to bringing together the audiovisual universe with other arts, such as painting, literature and music

From 15 to 24 March, the Oviedo Contemporary Audiovisual Week (initials in Spanish, SACO) returns to the Asturian capital with a free programme for all audiences that strengthens the links between audiovisuals and the rest of the arts. The festival will host four film-concerts, the film series ¿Y usted de qué se ríe?, in-house productions, talks and the laSema programme, which includes two family films and sessions for educational centres, which began on 6 March and will end on 12 April.

One of the unique aspects of SACO is the original shows and this tenth edition offers the first-time premieres of two cinema-concerts: La ley del hampa by César Latorre Trío and Diálogos con el CONSMUPA: de la música al cine. In the first, the Asturian pianist returns to the festival with the film that launched gangster cinema in 1927, directed by the Viennese Josef von Sternberg. And in the second, students from the Conservatorio Superior de Música Eduardo Martínez Torner will put music to silent film gems such as the pieces Ballet Mécanique (1924), by Fernand Léger, and Essai d'étude visuelle sur une arabesque (1929), by Germaine Dulac, among others.

SACO will also be visited by the musicians Víctor Coyote and Javi Álvarez, who will open this edition with a film-concert that pays homage to El Crack, a great neo-noir title directed by José Luis Garci in 1981 and starring Alfredo Landa as the detective Germán Areta. Also, the pianist Jorge Gil Zulueta will be at the Campoamor Theatre together with the violinist Diana Valencia for the film-concert Pioneras del cine, with three centenary gems: Falling Leaves and The Irresistible Piano by Alice Guy, and Shoes by Louis Weber. 

¿Y usted de qué se ríe? is a cycle that approaches humour as a subversive act, questioning the audience about what makes them laugh, and offering them the chance to enjoy films united by the peculiar sense of humour of their creators: Bluebeard’s 8th Wife and Trouble in Paradise, both by Ernst Lubitsch, join other classic such as The Sun Shines Bright, considered by John Ford to be his best film, and the surprising debut from Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple. Triangle of Sadness [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile], directed by the Swedish Ruben Östlund; I Hired a Contract Killer, by the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, and Night on Earth, by the American Jim Jarmusch, complete the cycle.

SACO’s line-up also includes the latest film from Lois Patiño, Samsara [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lois Patiño
film profile]: the Galician filmmaker was one of the filmmakers who took part in the first edition of SACO. The programme also includes two feature films for all audiences: Three Robbers and a Lion (Norway) by Rasmus A. Sivertsen, and Little Allan - The Human Antenna [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Denmark) by Amalie Naesby Fick.

Finally, the activity The Sound of Art by the artist Xabier Erkizia will be back again and there will be the premiere of the audio-drama El cine no carece de género by the writer Federico Volpini. Also, the guided tour of the Museum of Fine Arts will be led this year by Celia Viada Caso, photographer, film director (La calle del agua) and visual artist from Asturias.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)