Vers Madrid: a fresco of the 15M movement
- One year after a retrospective was dedicated to him in Pamplona, Sylvain George returns to the Punto de Vista festival to present a long documentary on the indignados movement
Vers Madrid [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (The Burning Bright) is one of the most awaited films by specialised media and audiences alike, ahead of the Festival Punto de Vista festival. Expectations are high thanks to the spatial and temporal proximity to actual 15M events which Sylvain George portrays, as well as thanks to the good impressions he made last year during a festival-initiated retrospective of his work (read the interview).
Already shown, but with a different montage, in the context of the corsair cinema section of the Venice Days and during the Lisbon Docs, Vers Madrid is an informative documentary, lasting two and a half hours, which tells the emotional and beautiful story of the first few days of Puerta del Sol occupation in Madrid, as much as the great variety of gestures, sounds, words, bodies, sentences, ideas, thoughts and discussions of a movement which, in many ways, marked a change in Spanish society.
The film’s value is twofold. On one side, it is an internal and nuanced look into a movement characterised by heterogeneity, freshness, imagination, spontaneity, and complexity, as it was arguably the first big European protest movement to take place in the 21st century. On the other side, it represents an outsider’s gaze, which uses elements particularly tied to Spanish memory, like García Lorca. Some spectators have defined this approach as topical and recurring, while others have seen the film as independent and detached, with an independent vision which remain newsworthy.
Just like in his last work, Sylvain George is faithful to his aesthetic and discursive signatory style, in this informative, poetic and political narrative which highlights the urgency of the current situation.
Vers Madrid was produced by Noir Production and is relying on the support of the CNC, La Coopérative Pionnière (Libre!) and la Fondation Abbé Pierre.
(Translated from Spanish)
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