25/11/2020 - The volcanic island is about to hold the tenth edition of its festival, with a selection of the very best in the short and feature-length formats, and a sizeable presence of Canary Islanders

Javier Fuentes, the event’s director, assures us that the tenth edition of the Lanzarote Muestra Internacional de Cine will have exactly the same energy and enthusiasm as its nine previous iterations: “This festival was born in the midst of a crisis, and we celebrate one whole decade of existence in the middle of an even bigger one, wearing a mask, but nevertheless, we are pressing on.” That’s why, between Thursday 26 November and Sunday 6 December, there will be ten days of screenings and other invigorating activities unspooling as part of this unique, welcoming and alternative cinematic event.

In its Official Section, competing for the Jury Prize (with the jury comprising journalists Jara Yáñez, Roger Koza and Claudio Utrera, the director of the Las Palmas International Film Festival for a total of 15 years, who will also receive an honorary award from the Muestra) are five features: My Mexican Bretzel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nuria Giménez
film profile] (Spain) by Nuria Giménez, Purple Sea (Germany) by Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed, An Unusual Summer (Palestine) by Kamal Aljafari, Night Shot (Chile) by Carolina Moscoso, and Las razones del lobo (Colombia) by Marta Hincapié Uribe.

On this occasion, the Trasfoco section will look at how different societies have overcome the fallout from major crises: audiences will be able to watch titles such as Hurricane, a 1963 Cuban film helmed by Santiago Álvarez; the classic The Grapes of Wrath (1940) by US master John Ford; Children of the Beehive (1948) by Japan’s Hiroshi Shimizu; Canciones para después de una guerra (1976) by Spaniard Basilio Martín Patino; Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) by Stanley Kramer; La respuesta (Chile) by Leopoldo Castedo; Three Weeks Later (2010) by his fellow Chilean José Luis Torres Leiva; the documentary The Pageant [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eytan Ipeker
film profile] (France/Turkey/Israel/Germany) by Eytan Ipeker; And Life Goes On (1992) by Iranian genius Abbas Kiarostami; and Black Rain (1989) by Japan’s Shohei Imamura.

A novelty this year is a new competitive section dubbed Cruce de Caminos: Cineastas Canarios (lit. “Crossroads: Canarian Filmmakers”), in which five short films produced on the sun-kissed islands (Apache by Octavio Gerra, Salatka by Rut Angielina, Los paraísos de Narciso by Miguel Mejías, Fuera de campo by Adriana Thomasa and Pablo Vilas, and Un río en invierno by Macu Machín) will be locking horns.

Finally, if there’s one thing that makes this gathering absolutely one of a kind, it’s its fantastic hikes and excursions/strolls to visit important – and not always well-known – sites on the volcanic island. On this occasion, there will be three outings: one called Scenes From Memory: Fishing and the Canned-food Industry in Arrecife; Woodlouse Routes; and A People Who Rose from the Ashes and Came Back to Life: Lanzarote. The Muestra de Cine has secured backing from the Lanzarote Island Council, Televisión Canaria, Arrecife City Hall, the Canarian local government and the Ministry of Culture and Sport, through the Spanish Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute (ICAA).

(Translated from Spanish)