Headed up by Gabriela Martí, the Rizoma Festival takes flight today and will continue aloft until 26 November, much to the delight of its audience, who always find its activities to be fun, surprising and thoroughly trendy. The patron of its eighth edition (17-26 November) will be none other than John Waters, that great and mighty filmmaker from Baltimore, with his superfine moustache and oodles of self-confidence. Not only will he meet the audience – online, from his house packed to the rafters with books – but he also makes an appearance in Valencian helmer Javier Polo’s colouristic film The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo [+lire aussi :
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Another key figure at Rizoma 2020 will be honouree Miranda July, an independent US artist who pays little heed to creative limitations and boundaries. She is having a comprehensive retrospective dedicated to her, which includes the Spanish premiere of Kajillionaire. In total, the festival will offer 36 on-site events and screenings, plus a number of titles will be available on the Filmin platform.

La llorona [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by the ever-daring Jayro Bustamante, a co-production between Guatemala and France, will have a spot in its varied line-up, and standing out among the other European films at this edition are the Belgian-Japanese effort Birdsong by Hendrik Willemyns, which takes a personal look at Japanese aesthetics while simultaneously fusing mystery, gracefulness and kitsch, and the German documentary Her Name Was Europa, directed by Anja Dornieden and Juan David González Monroy.

The festival is incorporating the Performáticos section into this edition, including four hybrid works straddling film and theatre: Malditos, a documentary by Elena Goatelli and Ángel Esteban; Chile’s Matar a Pinochet by Juan Ignacio Sabatini; The Geometry Between Me and What I See, an experimental film by Spaniard Jaime Refoyo; and Portrait of a White Woman With Grey Hair and Wrinkles by Iván Ruiz Flores, a movie starring Blanca Portillo. After the screenings of the latter two titles, the audience will be able to have a chat with their creators.

The principal desire of the festival is to return to in-person gatherings in theatres and remind the audience that cinema is a collective experience that should be shared, as well as demonstrating that culture is safe. This is why all of the screenings and activities will take place in accordance with strict health-and-safety protocols, with the organisers taking the necessary measures to guarantee the well-being of those in attendance.

The eighth edition of Rizoma has been made possible thanks to funding from the ICAA and sponsorship from the City of Madrid Film Office, Madrid City Council’s office providing promotion and consultancy for film shoots, and it has secured special contributions from the Madrid Film Library, Spanish Film Library, Telefónica Foundation, Sala Equis and Luchana Theatres, as well as the Canadian Embassy and the Goethe-Institut.