Javier Fuentes Feo is an expert in contemporary art with a long career during which he has published several articles on art theory and cultural analysis, books, directed a feature film and several research projects based on avant-garde cinema. He has been the artistic and production director of the  Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote since 2018 and we got the chance to talk to him at its latest edition.

Cineuropa: The festival has just finished its 13th edition, how do you think the festival has progressed this year?
Javier Fuentes Feo: It’s been a very positive year. Since the eighth edition, in 2018, when we made a very important change to the project, we have been consolidating numerous ideas and approaches that in this edition have gained a lot of ground. In 2023 many people have come to Lanzarote who wanted to present their films here, people with great prestige in independent cinema, as well as top national and international journalists who’ve shown their interest in covering the project. The debates after screenings have been extensive and interesting, and all the activities that connect film with reality, such as the conferences and the round table discussions, have greatly enriched how both the films and the theme of this year's edition - migration - are understood.

(L'article continue plus bas - Inf. publicitaire)

The official section is committed to films with a strong formal and political commitment, demanding for the audience and far removed from the conventions of commercial cinema. Is there an audience in Lanzarote for this type of cinema?
In my opinion, there’s always an audience for this type of cinema, in Lanzarote or anywhere else in the world; there needs to be, and we have to work hard to ensure that the cinemas are as full as possible when this type of film is shown. This is the most interesting cinema being made right now. The films we screen at the festival are those that allow us to really think about reality and about what cinema can and should be today as a great cultural and aesthetic experience. This cinema is real culture. A culture that helps us to understand the world in a complex way, so I think there is always an audience for this kind of cinema.

Connecting with young audiences through screenings for schools or initiatives such as the youth jury is also important for the festival. How do you think younger audiences react to the festival's risky proposals?
In a world that has been colonised by moving images and the constant flow of audiovisual information, we have to ask ourselves whether young people are trained to know the ecosystem into which they are born. The answer is often they’re not, in others it is a big question mark. Today, audiovisual tools are used with surprising agility while the power and danger that comes with images is largely unknown. Any cultural project nowadays has to address this big issue: helping young people, and people in general, to become aware of what images are all about. We are entering a very disturbing historical moment in this regard. In the exhibition we have different activities aimed at helping young people to take a critical look at images.

One striking feature of the festival is that the deliberation in which the jury decides the awards is open to the public, who can actively participate in the process. Why did you decide to make this an additional activity and what do you think it brings to the festival?
One of the major issues in democratic politics is everything to do with transparency in decision-making. I’m sometimes surprised to see how juries make decisions in cultural environments, almost always behind closed doors. And then when they finish, there are suspicions, if not doubts or explicit criticisms over what has been decided. In 2018 we decided that the jury’s deliberation should take place in public so that the choice of the winning film would always be motivated and well-argued. Over time, we made small improvements to the deliberation system, for example, by giving the audience time to express their thoughts and ideas on the films under consideration, which led on occasion to slight differences with the jury's views. The final purpose of this methodology is to ensure that the jury's deliberation is open and that there is a deep and real reflection on film as a cultural and artistic expression.