For the past few months, Sara Mansanet has been at the helm of the Mostra de València – Cinema del Mediterrani (23 October-2 November), which this year reaches the milestone of its 40th edition. We sat down with Mansanet – who previously worked at Cinema Jove and La Cabina, among other events – to discuss the keynotes of this anniversary outing.

Cineuropa: How has the festival’s infrastructure changed?
Sara Mansanet: From the outset, the festival has been run using municipal resources, tied to Valencia City Council. The bureaucratic structure has evolved, and after 2018, the autonomous municipal body Mostra de València was created; but the festival is now hosted by the autonomous municipal body Palau de la Música, which has set up a new Sub-directorate for Film and Audiovisual, which is my place of work. The Mostra de València is the main activity undertaken by this sub-directorate, with a commitment to staging more film activities at the Palau de la Música throughout the year. This guarantees the festival its own permanent staff – civil servants who work year-round and are therefore part of the team. In addition, we bring in external hires. If you can ensure a stable structure for a festival, everything flows differently.

And how are you tackling this challenge and responsibility?
With enthusiasm, above all, although it does entail a fair amount of responsibility: working for the city is wonderful, but it also demands commitment. It’s a good time to grow the festival, and the response from the audiovisual sector has been terrific. It’s important to forge collaborative networks here in Valencia and across Spain.

What is the festival retaining from previous years, and what’s new at this edition?
It retains its Mediterranean spirit, which has been reinforced over the past seven years. We’re working on that positioning, especially with the Middle East and North Africa – film industries that are eager to premiere their works here. We’re keeping our industry commitment, strengthening the Valencia Film Afers co-production forum to develop feature-film projects from the Mediterranean basin, and bringing in producers and sales agents so co-productions can emerge. New features include the inclusion of non-fiction in the Official Section; we’ve opened the La Cabina mid-length competition; and we’re locating the co-production forum at the city’s marina, right on the waterfront. Having the Mediterranean physically present within the festival is a major step forward. We’ve also introduced a DAMA Finestra Award [finestra meaning “window” in Valencian], a meeting point for the Valencian sector at the festival. We want to bolster the space for the Valencian industry as well as the international one. Likewise, we’ve reshaped the parallel informative section as Xaloc [meaning “sirocco”], which will showcase films premiering in the Valencia region and competing for the new Audience Award. We’ve also opened the festival up to new venues around the city, such as the Palau de la Música itself, and music will play a prominent role at the event, with talks by composers, including Alejandro Amenábar.

You’re also dedicating a retrospective to Nanni Moretti and handing out awards to two renowned Spanish producers.
Yes, we’ve centred the Focus section on Moretti, with all of his films brought together in one place: the retrospective kicks off with the festival and will continue throughout November at the Valencian Film Library. And we’re handing out two Honorary Palms: to Fernando Bovaira, the producer of major films such as The Sea Inside [+leggi anche:
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Do you have any personal recommendations as the festival’s new director?
Yes, the 40th-anniversary strand: we have salvaged 20 winners of the Golden Palm, the festival’s top award, from Los fieles sirvientes by Francesc Betriú, the victor from the first year, through to titles from Turkey, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia – most of them hard to see or to find on platforms. It’s been an intensive recovery effort. We also have an exhibition of the festival’s posters, offering an overview of Valencian design from the 1980s to today. It’s important for the festival to reach this ripe age – the timing is right, the context is favourable, and we’ll be able to push ahead with some very interesting, enticing propositions.