1. Participation
Participation is open to all film producers and directors of any nationality or origin. Each author can present the number of films that they want, except for films which have previously been submitted to this contest.
What drive us
A contest dedicated to transcendental cinema, at its several meanings, including philosophic, psychological, scientific, anthropological, spiritual and poetic cinema.
Because transcendence in the man and the world, might be eventually ineffable and, on this, cinematographic art has certain advantages, and a huge responsibility.
Cinemística as an open space-time, with non restrictive features, enabling the authors to develop their own language: all formats, duration, nationality, year of production, etc. are accepted.
An international refuge for films that intend, technically or with the plot, an approaching to the big mystery of world representation, in the art and in the man. Without dogmas, under any individual or collective perspective, from faith, but also from agnosticism, spiritual atheism and scientific thought.
Filmmakers' looks, in all their socio-cultural diversity, interested in any film as a result of personal discovering, researching or experimentation, inspiration and work, from revelation or introspection of the authors. Quotidian, ecstasy and disparity as structures to create depth on the film treatment.
Mysticism and asceticism in film production represent, probably, a more absolute estate compare to others, because a cinema with huge budget and more technical complexity could be done, but sometimes the most humble and simple film is, however, universal.
Impermanent cinematographies, from the still, from 'amateur' cinema (from French verb aimer), define directors not only by what they show and how they do it on screen, but by what they decide not to show.
What appears and disappears, topologies emergence, materials or conscious, and their invisibility or subsequent expiration. The sequential surroundings of emptiness, of matters and time. Shafts at the discourse, eloquent, everyone can understand it by himself. Absence and miracle: Mystic as a possible cohabit together.
From 2014 the headquarter of Cinemistica Film Festival is the historical building of La Corrala de Santiago of the University of Granada, where take place most of the screenings and colloques of the festival.
We are a small team, formed by Elena Gómez García (art historian), Eva Bellón (designer), Miguel Ángel Sáez (telecommunication engineer) and Manuel Polls Pelaz (Arte7Cinemateca manager).
Other members and friends from Guadalcine Association collaborate with communication and promotion.
Manuel Polls Pelaz, who called himself "cinehasta" (in the impermanence way: a cinema pilgrimage), owner of the film producer 2Angeles Films, is the responsible of the endow and management of the contest Cinemística. Manuel also endowed and directed in Barcelona (1993-1996) the contest L'Alternativa, and presided the Foundation La Jungla, which organize the European Cinema Market of Barcelona (1997-1999), and he also has directed al at the same time the contest NET (New European Talents), even the famous summer contest Grec in Barcelona.
Settled in Granada from 2002, he has been directing from then to now the Guadalcine Associated, and he also directs the touring cine-club "La Cueva del Ojo", which regularly programs cinema sessions in differents Faculties of the University of Granada, Cádiz, Seville, Córdoba and Malaga.
From 2013 summer, Manuel Polls also takes up the management of Arte7 Cinemateca from Granada, institution in charge of organizing the contest Cinemística.
Since 2017 he directs the Film Laboratory of the Technical School of Architecture of the University of Granada.
Cinemística was born in Granada, Spain, the border between east and west on the inside representation of the world, between the symbolism of the magnifier and the magnet. It is a gap in the space-time, and civilizations memories, between the magnifier and the magnet, timeless homeland for poets and alchemists from every art and belief.
You can find us at Arte7Cinemateca, Plaza Campo del Príncipe 1, bajo-izq., 18009 Granada (Spain).
Form 7 to 24 NOVEMBER 2024
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Although the figure 10 could invite us to consider the current 2024 edition as an exceptional anniversary (which it is, at least because of the improbable nature of the festival continuing to exist), at Cinemística we prefer to avoid any sense of complacency, and continue to occupy ourselves, without further ado, of the current state of art cinema, of wonderful anthropological cinema, of free cinema, of reality cinema, of cinematograph focused directly and critically towards the borders of the external and internal world.
Thus, in addition to the usual competitive sections of Cinemística (1), Anthropological Cinema (2), Film Schools (3) and Children's Cinema (4), as every year a special competitive section is proposed, this time under the topic: Myths, Rites and everyday Life (5).
Everyday life not devoid of, when conscious, an infinite diversity of repetitive formal procedures, rites, often astonishing, consciously or unconsciously linked with the personal and collective imagery and symbolism of myths. We will talk about mythologies only when the myths are binding for a certain society.
In praise of diversity, some everyday things are admired, others tolerated, and there are those who are forced to resist in hiding, due to a logic of survival. This was, for example, the case of the Moors of Granada in the 16th century. Today, almost 500 years later, there are unfortunately still similar conflicts in our world, if possible even more painful because they are anachronistic and absurd.
No strangers to dystopia, in our Western societies the use of social networks configures an everyday life, as false as it is hegemonic and current, in an often aggressive and perverse mosaic of voyeuristic banalities, which remind us of Georges Perec, when in 1978 he referred in his novel “Life: Instructions for use”: “I imagine a Parisian building whose façade has disappeared (...) so that, from the mezzanine to the attics, all the rooms in front are visible instantly and simultaneously.”
Already in 1944 Georges Bernanos spoke about the dictatorship of technology, and our admired filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub, whom we honored in the last edition of the festival, dedicated his last film to this topic: “La France contre les robots” (2017) .
What to do then under pressure from the dominant media proposal, which, through the apparent innocence of the continuous and obligatory downloading of applications, includes the daily subjugation of humanity to a renewed and global dictatorship of technology?
Perhaps it is worth considering today the added importance of revolutionary everyday life, as a silent daily rebellion carried out by the individual. By each individual, by people, each for their own reasons and with their own personal style, with audacity, discretion and diverse mischief. These intimate micro-revolutions, even the secret ones (they are the best), when exercised ritually and daily, can convey a respect, truthfulness and deep attention to the closest real, to what is operationally close, without losing the holistic sense of the universal.
The fact that Chantal Akermann's film “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (1976), portraying the daily life of a prostitute mother, has recently been awarded by one of the most influential association of film critics in all the world (Sight & Sound), as the best film in history, should be considered an indicator of the collective feeling of necessary cinematographic return to everyday life and its rituals. A commendable option from our point of view, quixotically confronted with that of the dominant and insatiable consumption of audiovisual eccentricities.
In the history of ethnographic cinema, attention to rituals, myths and everyday life has always allowed, both from an anthropological and simply human point of view, a potential for artistic creativity in the filmmaker's gaze. The anthropologist and father of “cinema-vérité” Jean Rouch, in his “Chronicle of a Summer” (1961) proposed with Edgar Morin that such ethnography could avoid the temptation of the exotic and colonial sentiment, to situate itself very interestingly in our own context. urban social, in our apparent normality.
The device of collective film projection, in itself, undoubtedly constitutes the last great Western rite, with impunity on the way to extinction: A group of spectators, people unknown to each other, gather in a dark room, in silence. Soon a ray of light passes over them, in the tantric space of the movie theater, above their heads: it is then that said light projects on a canvas, initially white and that regardless of its dimensions will become immense, the dreams of a demiurge (the filmmaker) come true. After this collective ritual (with or without a cinema-forum type discussion), all participants will return to the outside world, which we will possibly find changed, since so will we.
It is also necessary to remember here that everyday life is one of the stages described by the referential work of Paul Schrader (1974) regarding the style of transcendental cinema in Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer. An everyday life that speaks to us and questions us, and even astonishes, in the same sense that the alchemist of Granada cinema Val del Omar told us in 1954, when he stated that “The extraordinary is found within the ordinary.”.
For all these reasons and others that we will discover during the development of the festival, in this 2024 Cinemística chooses to place itself at the rear of the film avant-garde of the international festival framework, a bit in the sense that Alice Letoulat has recently highlighted in her study “Archaism and impurity” (2022) on the cinema of Paradjanvov (this year is his centenary), Pasolini and Oliveira.
An exciting rearguard because, without ceasing to belong to our world/time, which by definition is avant-garde, we do not wish to be part of its devouring current affairs, but rather to live somewhat backward, in the innocence of childhood, and in that of a world at risk of disappearance, which we must try to retain and express poetically. As Sartre said about Baudelaire: “Advance backwards as much as possible, in the back seat of a car that is taking us away, trying to fix our gaze backwards and forwards, on the road that leads us away.”
Although by academic convention we are taught that there was a "passage from myth to logos", the myth never left and continues to accompany human beings. The convention according to which Philosophy emerged from the “passage from myth to logos” implies a Eurocentric point of view about what is considered rational, which has permeated all Western thought with tragic consequences for other cultures. However, in a certain way, myths continue to fascinate us beyond a mechanized and commercialized life to the extreme, with a certain balsamic character that comforts and connects with that human part of passions, dreams, desires, fantasy, mystery, the mystical, the inexplicable or unspeakable of the existential story.
We therefore invite you to present your films to the 10th edition of the Cinemística Festival – 2024 Myths, Rites and Everyday Life, guaranteeing you an absolutely attentive and respectful look from the selection committee towards all the candidate works.
The 10th edition of the Cinemística Festival will continue to be vocationally only in person, with abundant discussions with guest directors and specialists, always open to the intervention of spectators. We are all convinced that in part the survival towards the future of humanism in our species should be accompanied by the conservation of the cinematographic ritual and myth of collective projections.
2024 Rites, myths and everyday life - We will celebrate the Paradjanov Centenary
MICRO-SPONSORSHIP
As you know, Festival Cinemistica does not have subsidies, and is financed by small contributions from the sponsor and collaborating entities. If you wish, you can make your voluntary collaboration effective, making a deposit in the Guadalcine Association's bank account of the Caja de Arquitectos de Granada (after the San Agustín market), by any means you wish (transfer, hand deposit). Please always indicate your name and surname, which will be published on the festival's website and blog.
IBAN code of the account: ES81 3183 1800 1510 0445 4524
Five categories of participation have been established:
Festival supporters: up to 25,- €
Friends of the Festival: 25,- €
Festival partners: 45,- €
Festival protectors: 95,- €
Sponsors of the Festival: 290,- €
From 7 to 24 NOVEMBER 2024
Participation is open to all film producers and directors of any nationality or origin. Each author can present the number of films that they want, except for films which have previously been submitted to this contest.
All genres (fiction, animation, documentary, experimental, unclassifiable), year of production, length (short and feature films) and format of production are admitted; viewing for pre-selection will be done through a link provided by the authors to a server or digital platform (Vimeo type link, etc.).
The formats of the works selected for screening must be digital formats such as .mp4, although exceptionally they may also be in physical format of S8mm, 16mm. celluloid or DVD.
DCP is not accepted.
Films subtitled in English or French are accepted in the selection process.
The works finally selected must be in their original version with subtitles in Spanish. For very exceptional and justified reasons, they may be accepted for screening with English or French subtitles, on condition that we are provided with an .srt file with English subtitles and an original version without subtitles.
Authors are responsible for paying the royalties generated by their works, the festival is exempt from any payment in this respect.
To participate in this contest, the following conditions must be respected, and the participants will behave in accordance with:
- Each participant must complete and send before the dead-line the registration questionnaire which will be found further on http://blog.cinemistica.com/inscripciones-cinemistica/
The Festival will recognize the signer of the registration questionnaire as the only interlocutor to negotiate all the aspects related to the film and as the only responsible rather than other companies or people who have been involved on the film production.
- Audiovisual support for the pre-selection. Normally, the selection committee works with the digital links to view the films, as indicated by the authors in the entry form.
If the entry form does not include a link to view and download the film, a copy of the film, in DVD or BluRay format, will be sent by post or courier to the following address:
ARTE7 CINEMATECA
Plaza Campo del Príncipe 1, bajo-izq.
18009 Granada - Spain
Transport costs will be paid by the entity which register the film.
The registrations also can be done through clickforfestivals.com, movibeta.com, festhome.com and filmfreeway.com.
In case of being selected, the management will contact the author asking for the material necessary for the projection and promotion of the film.
Selected films will be exhibited at the time and places showed on the programme and on the official website www.cinemistica.com. The films received will be kept on Arte7Cinemateca catalogue and may be free used (without copyrights etc.) for their cultural activities as well as in screenings in the Asociación Guadalcine/Arte7 activities in universities, cinema clubs and cultural centers.
Participation implies the full acceptance of these rules.
Film with a duration of 30 minutes or lower: 7.-€
Film with a duration over 30 minutes: 15.-€
Payment method: Only by PayPal
When the payment is made (each film submitted should be paid independently), you will receive from Pay Pal an ID number of registration, which you have to introduce in the first field of the Registration Questionnaire.
15th JULY 2024
THE ADMISSION DEADLINE FOR FILMS CM2024 IS 15th JULY 2024
Contact information
For doubts or queries, please contact us in:
Arte7 Cinemateca de Granada
Plaza Campo del Príncipe 1, bajo-izq.
18009 Granada, Spain
Phone: (+34) 958 228 133
Mobile phone: (+34) 678 90 36 34
Email: info@cinemistica.com
The first and highest award of the contest has a strong symbology: “THE MAGNIFIER AND THE MAGNET”. It’s about two elements connected very close with the person of the famous granadian cinemist José Val del Omar (1904-1982), who thought about the magnifier as occidental culture symbol (the obvious, the rational) against the magnet, element of the oriental culture (the magnetism, the invisible). For Val del Omar, Granada will be the meeting point between East and West.
