Summer Workshop — JOSÉ LUIS GUERIN
WORK IN PROGRESS
August 27 to September 1, 2019
One of the most emblematic directors in independent cinema, working outside the commercial film industry.
Description of the workshop:
The workshop develops a dialectical dialogue with the ideas and cinematographic projects that participants bring. These projects can aspire to be long, short or medium-length films, documentaries, essays, poems or fictions and can be at any stage of development: writing, filming, editing or simply the beginnings of an idea in the form of a few written lines, an outline, some photos or recorded clips. They may even originate in the workshop itself (so bringing a project along is not a precondition for attending).
Taking these diverse stages and formats as a starting point, we will discuss, reflect on and apply our imaginations to the different projects, sharing possible strategies and the dilemmas they pose and setting them against possible cinematographic antecedents which we will view together.
We will try to draw out general concepts from the specific issues that we address.
Aims of the workshop:
- To reflect on cinema from the point of view of practice.
- To give each participant the opportunity to formulate a cinematographic idea in their own way, free of any obligation to present a piece of film at the end of the workshop.
- To prevent logistics and technology from becoming the main problem.
- To share issues and encourage all participants to use their imaginations or borrow from each other’s projects.
The workshop includes daily morning and afternoon sessions, debates and movie screenings.
To complement the workshop, participants are free to watch additional films at the end of each day’s sessions.
The classroom will remain open 24 hours a day.
There is the possibility of an open-air screening.
Collaborative event of La Plantation and Council of Ferreira de Pantón. Friday, August 30 (afternoon):
– Projection to open air in the village of Ferreira de Pantón, friday, August 30, 9:30 pm. (located a kilometer away from the house “Casa dos Muros” where the workshop and accommodation will be taught), the film: “La academia de las musas”.
– Meeting of José Luís Guerin with José Manuel Mouriño (researcher, essayist and filmmaker).
Friends of the Cineclube Padre Feijoo of Ourense will beresponsible for the proyections and the thecnical part.
Audience:
The workshop is intended for film makers, video artists, camera operators, film editors, students of Film, Fine Arts, Audiovisual Communication or Sound and Image, and anyone interested in the cinema.
José Luis Guerin.Barcelona 1960
In his film career as director and screenwriter of his own films, José Luis Guerín has combined fiction and documentary, blurring the boundaries between the two genres.
With his films, he has been present in Film Festivals such as Venice (Official Selection), Cannes (Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight), Berlin (Forum), San Sebastian (Official Competition), several times in Locarno, Rotterdam, Tokyo… He is perhaps one of the best received Spanish filmmakers among critics and audiences at International Festivals.
He has had retrospectives dedicated to him at festivals and important cultural centers such as the Georges Pompidou Centre (Paris) and the Harvard Film Institute.
Winner of the Premio Nacional de Cinematografía, 2001.
He currently lives in France.
Films:
Los motivos de Berta.
Spain / 1983 / 35mm / 115’ / B/W.
With Sílvia Gracia, Arielle Dombasle, Iñaki Aierra, Rafael Díaz, Juan Diego Botto.
José Luis Guerin’s first feature film, Los motivos de Berta (Fantasía de pubertad) follows the development of a lonely adolescent girl in a small village in Castille.
– Jury Award at the Berlin Forum.
– Premio Calidad awarded by the Ministry of Culture.
–Sant Jordi Award (RNE).
Souvenir.
Spain / 1986 / 8mm / 5’ / B/W
A hommage to Jean Renoir, René Clair and several images of a love from younger days.
Innisfree.
Spain / 1990 / 35mm / 110’ / colour
With Bartley O’Feeney, Padraig O’Feeney, Anna Livia Ryan, Anne Slattery
Things seen and heard in Innisfree, Ireland, where John Ford shot ‘The Quiet Man’ in 1951.
– Un Certain Regard selection, Cannes Film Festival.
– Fotogramas de Plata Best Spanish Film.
– Ciutat de Barcelona Award.
– Sant Jordi Award (RNE).
Tren de sombras (El espectro de Le Thuit).
Spain / 1997 / 35mm / 88’ / B/W and colour / sound.
With Juliette Gaultier, Ivan Orvain, Anne Céline Auche.
José Luis Guerín searches for the secrets hidden in the amateur images filmed by a certain Gérard Fleury in the 1920’s. Mystery and a silent interplay of appearances and disappearances, glances, recreations and correspondences.
– Directors’ Fortnight selection, Cannes Film Festival.
– Gold and Silver Méliès Awards given by the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation (Fantasporto).
– Festival of Ourense, Calpurnia Award for Best Picture.
– Festival of Sitges, “José Luis Guarner” Critics’ Award.
– National Cinema Award of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
– Sant Jordi Award (RNE).
En construcción.
Spain / 2000 / 35mm / 125’ / colour.
With Juana Rodríguez, Juan López, Santiago Segade, Abdel Aziz El Mountassir, Antonio Atar.
The construction of a block of flats in the Barrio Chino, a working class area in Barcelona, inhabitated by workers, immigrants, tramps and prostitutes.
–GOYA Award for Best Documentary.
– San Sebastián Film Festival, Jury’s Special Award.
– San Sebastián Film Festival, International Critics’ Fipresci Award.
– Award from the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos.
– Sant Jordi Award (RNE).
Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia.
Spain / 2007 / video / 67’ / B/W / silent with intertitles.
A free-standing essay rather than just a preparatory outline for En la ciudad de Sylvia, Unas fotos is a photographic diary of both stills and photographs reanimated by fades and dissolves, the search for a woman met 22 years previously.
– Vancouver International Film Festival selection – official competition.
– Gijón International Film Festival selection – official competition.
En la ciudad de Sylvia.
Spain-France / 2007 / 35mm / 84’ / colour / vof.
With Pilar López de Ayala, Xavier Lafitte, Laurence Cordier, Tanja Czichy, Charlotte Dupont, Eric Dietrich
A young man, a stranger in the city, pursues the memory of a woman through the streets, cafes and bars of Strasbourg.
– Considered one of the 10 best pictures premiered in Spain by Cahiers du Cinéma Spain.
– Venice Film Festival selection – official competition. “Bizato de Oro” Critics’ Award.
– Festival du Cinèma Espagnol de Nantes. “Jules Verne” Award.
–ACE Award, New York Film Critics’ Association (Best Director).
Guest
Spain / 2010 / video / 127’ / B/W.
While attending festivals with En la ciudad de Sylvia, in Guest José Luis Guerín puts together a travel journal which, with Venice as his starting and end point, takes him to Havana, Macao, Hong Kong, Lima, Bogota, Paris… Guerín sets out to meet the inhabitants of these cities in their streets and squares, creating a journal of contrasts.
– Venice Film Festival selection – Orizzonti Section
– Toronto Film Festival selection
Dos cartas a Ana.
Spain / 2010 / video / 28’ / B/W / sound with intertitles.
Fascinated by the lost paintings of Antiquity mentioned in classical texts, particularly in Pliny the Older’s Natural History, José Luis Guerín creates an essay in the form of letters in which images, words, light and shadow explore the relationship between cinema and painting.
Correspondencias Jonas Mekas – J.L. Guerin.
Spain-France / 100’ / 2011 / video / B/W – colour
– The subject of a retrospective in the Georges Pompidou Centre.
Recuerdos de una mañana.
South Korea / 2011 / HD / 47’ / colour.
“On the morning of January 21st, 2008, my neighbour, a violinist, committed suicide by jumping out of his window. He was the same age as me, and the only thing I knew about him is that he was working on a new translation of Goethe’s Werther.” With this recollection as a starting point, the filmmaker began investigating his neighbours’ stories.
– Jeonju International Film Project.
– Shown in Locarno.
Le Saphir de Saint-Louis.
France / 2015 / HD / 35’ / colour.
The story of a painting in the votive chapel of the cathedral in La Rochelle, depicting the tragedy of the slave ship “Le Saphir” in 1741.
–La Rochelle Festival.
– Shown in Locarno.
La academia de las musas.
Spain / 2015 / HD / 92’ / colour.
In this film he works from Fiction: a maze of situations based on things that never happened, fictionalised and recounted by actors who drew on their own personal experience to create the dialogues.
– Premiered at the Locarno Festival.
– Award: Giraldillo de Oro, Festival of European Cinema, Seville.
– Award: Best Director of Fiction, International Film Festival of Cartagena de las Indias.
–Don Quijote Award, FICCI in Tromso, Norway.
– Award for Best Catalan Film of the Year, Federation of Cine Clubs of Catalunya.
– Pepón Corominas Award, Catalan Academy of Cinema.
De una isla.
Spain / 2019 / 24´ / 16mm / B/W.
Exhibitions – Installations:
Las mujeres que no conocemos
Photosequential installation at the 52nd Venice Art Biennial (June – November, 2007) and in the CCCB – Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (January – March 2008)
La dama de Corinto
Installation in the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art (December 2010 – June 2011)
Georges Pompidou Centre (December 7, 2012 – January 2013)
Exposiciones – Instalaciones:
Las mujeres que no conocemos.
Photosequential installation at the 52nd Venice Art Biennial (June – November, 2007) and in the CCCB – Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (January – March 2008)
La dama de Corinto.
Installation in the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art (December 2010 – June 2011)
Georges Pompidou Centre (December 7, 2012 – January 2013)
Prices:
740 €. (Workshop + full board and lodging in the Casa dos Muros + light snacks during the workshop).
The workshop will be given in Spanish.
Places are limited and will be filled strictly in order of registration.
REGISTRATION IS OPEN UNTIL AUGUST 26.