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FESTIVALS Spain

Play-Doc: A gateway to a strange reality

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- Avant-garde documentaries from myriad sources, forgotten gems of the genre and the very best in Galician non-fiction come together in the Spanish town of Tui

Play-Doc: A gateway to a strange reality
Liberami by Federica Di Giacomo

This year, Tui, a Galician town nestled on the border between Spain and Portugal, is celebrating Play-Doc for the 13th time. This festival dedicated to non-fiction films has become something of a world-class benchmark in its field, and so, from 22-26 March, it will play host to the most audacious offerings from the current cinematic landscape in its official section. The premiere of the latest film by Dominic Gagnon, Of the North, will round off the retrospective that the gathering is dedicating to the Canadian director, who will also be there in person to lead a master class. The menu for the gathering, enough to make any film buff’s mouth water, also comprises a selection of 12 Galician docs; The Wrong Revolution cycle, made up of five titles curated by Jake Perlin, artistic director of the Metrograph movie theatre in New York; and a collaboration with nearby festival Porto/Post/Doc, with the screening of the classic On the Bowery, helmed by US filmmaker Lionel Rogosin in 1957.

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Five movies will be competing in the official section this year. The French-Italian production Liberami [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
, which earned its director, Federica Di Giacomo, the Horizons Award at the most recent Venice Film Festival, will share the limelight with The Graduation [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, the latest film by French director Claire Simon, whom the gathering devoted a comprehensive retrospective to last year. Portugal’s Cláudia Varejão will present Ama-San [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which rounds off the trio of European films hoping to emerge victorious in the official competition. The Argentinian film The Future Perfect by Nele Wohlatz and Mexico’s Omar y Gloria by Jimmy Cohen are the other two titles that make up the quintet duking it out for the top prize this year. 

As for Galician documentary makers, Tui will be hosting the latest works by such names as Fon Cortizo, Ángeles Huerta, Cristina Camaño, José Manuel Mouriño and Carmen Bellas in the coming days. The activities are topped off by workshops, concerts and dance performances that will serve to bring the audience closer to a film genre that is not always given the recognition it deserves.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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