AINHOA RODRÍGUEZ, DIRECTOR OF MULTI-AWARDED FILM DESTELLO BRAVÍO, COORDINATES MICE’S SECTION “IMPROPIAS”

February 22, 2023

Filmmaker Ainhoa Rodríguez, the Spanish director behind the multi-awarded film Destello bravío, is the female creator invited by MICE – International Ethnographic Film Festival to program Impropias – their parallel section devoted to the dissemination of ethnographic films made by women filmmakers like Rodríguez herself, whose first fiction feature film Destello bravío earned her the Best Director Award at Vilnius International Film Festival (2021) and Seoul International Women’s Film Festival (2021), and the Violette d’Or at Toulouse’s Festival Cinespaña. The film, a comedy featuring a group of non-actresses that relies on documentary filming techniques to portray the life of a small town in southern Spain, was also recognized with the Silver Biznaga for Best Editing and the Jury Award at Málaga’s International Film Festival.

In addition to introducing the screening of her first feature, Rodríguez will conduct a seminar on the films she curated for this year’s Impropias, a selection that also includes the films Cow, by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold, and Eldorado XXI, by Portuguese creator Salomé Lamas. All these films delve into the topic chosen to be the backbone of MICE’s 2023 edition –the notion of rururbanity as a phenomenon that contrasts with the rural/urban dichotomy.

Non-competitive sections

MDOC – Melgaço International Documentary Film Festival will be MICE’s guest festival in this 18th edition. They will be in charge of curating a film selection for Lindes, a non-competitive section devoted to creative and documentation processes in ethnographic filmmaking, focusing on geographical, cultural, and cinematographic borders, which this year will be approached from the perspective of rururbanity. The Lindesselection will include a series of works recently featured at MDOC: Dispersos pelo centro by António Aleixo, Four Seasons in a Day, a Belgian-Lithuanian production by documentary filmmaker Annabel Verbeke, and a selection of short films by woman filmmakers created under the umbrella of Plano Frontal, an initiative by Lugar do Real – a project by AO NORTE (Associação de Produção e Animação Audiovisual) for screening documentary films for pedagogic, research, and cultural purposes. The Lindes screenings will be complemented by Q&A sessions focusing on film creation and production.

Rururbanity will also be the focus of another of MICE’s non-competitive sections, Trazas, organized in collaboration with Cineclube de Compostela (Santiago de Compostela’s Film Club). This year, their program features a selection of films:  Boca de lixo, written and directed by Brasilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho; Contras’City, by Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty; Guías turísticas satánicas: Polígono de Coia, by the Spanish collective Vicisitud y Sordidez; As cidades e as Trocas by Portuguese filmmakers Luísa Homem and Pedro Pinho; Al-Sandawich, by Egyptian director Ateyyat El-Abnoudy, and The Conwy Crossing, by Stephen Hewitt and David Shaw.

Exhibition & performance

Parallel activities of MICE’s 18th edition include an exhibition and a performance by young Galician artist Marta Valverde. Her proposal is a multidisciplinary exploration where she combines different supports (video, photography, and performance) to approach rururbanity from the perspective of her personal experience as someone born and raised in an archetypal rururban location – Nigrán (Galicia).

Venues & tickets

This wide range of activities connected with ethnographic filmmaking will be offered for the duration of the festival, which will take place in Santiago de Compostela from March 15 to March 21. For another year, MICE’s activities will be hosted in three venues: the Museum of Galician PeopleTeatro Principal, and NumaxAll of MICE’s activities are free of charge.

Learn more: http://mice.museodopobo.gal/es/informacion 

MICE’s 18th edition is made possible with the support of Santiago de Compostela’s City Council, the cultural department of A Coruña’s Provincial Council, and Xunta de Galicia (the Regional Government of Galicia), in collaboration with AGADIC – the Galician agency for the cultural industries