February, 26th 2024.- MICE, the International Ethnographic Film Festival promoted by the Museum of Galician People, celebrates in March its 19th edition already consolidated as a reference event at Galician national and even international level, specialised in ethnographic cinema and visual anthropology. This year we focus on politics from an ethnographic approach, the rituals, and their symbolic power of the spaces where their practices, relations and significances are performed. This topic is also reflected on the festival’s image, created by the very new photographer and filmmaker from Verín Sabela Souto. In the industrial memory, labour politics, feminism and tradition converge, and the main characters are Galician women.
Women are also the main characters in the Impropias section, which aims to draw attention to the women filmmakers who make ethnographic films. The Cecilia Mangini focus, by Carolina Astudillo, in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna and Instituto Italiano di Cultura, will be one of festival highlights. The Chilean filmmaker, who has previously been at the MICE, will relate the considered “Italian Agnès Varda”’s work to her own work.
In addition to the screening of the official sections—Galicia and International, whose content will be announced soon—the festival is once again supporting training programs. Thus, the parallel section Lindes combines on this occasion the training and informative nature. There will be two sessions, relevant for audiovisual professionals and people in anthropology and history fields. Filmmakers Diana Gonçalves and Iván Castiñeiras will share with the audience their creative processes, starting with their own ongoing projects: Transfronteriza, from Gonçalves, and Deuses de pedra, from Castiñeiras, two work in progress pieces which address the border between Galicia and Portugal.
Another training proposal of this 19th MICE is the workshop “Audiovisual creation with touch easy-to-use devices”, taught by Coral Piñeiro and Bruno Arias, filmmakers in charge of MICEscola. It is addressed to people who are interested in using the audiovisual creation process in formal and informal education. The workshop will take place on Monday, March 25th, from 17:30 to 20:30, and it is necessary to pre-register sending an e-mail to mice@museodopobo.gal.
In order to comply with Agenda 2030 and with a sustainable development, MICE is committed with quality education and supports one more year MICE Petís, with specific programming for schools, along with the MiniFIC of FICBUEU (International Short Film Festival of Bueu), and with family screenings in the Museum and online. In addition, this year takes place the second MICEscola edition, a teaching project focused on bringing ethnographic cinema to schools. Its purpose is to provide young people with technical and narrative tools so they can tell their point of view about the world through short films created with mobile devices. The participating centres are the Secondary School Pedra da Aguia (Camariñas), the Multilingual All-through School Cernadas de Castro (Lousame), the Secondary School from Arzúa (Arzúa), and the Secondary School from Cacheiras (Teo). The resulting pieces will be screened at the Museum of Galician People as part of the MICE’s extended program.
The International Ethnographic Film Festival’s 19th edition is organised by Museum of Galician Poeple, and is made possible with the support of Santiago de Compostela’s City Council, A Coruña’s Provincial Council Department for Culture, and AGADIC—the Galician agency for the cultural industries— from the Regional Government of Galicia.
