Melgaço International Documentary Film Festival

A meeting focused on non-fiction cinema, MDOC - Melgaço International Documentary Film Festival will bring us, from August 1st to 7th, the point of view of creators about different realities and concerns that intersect the contemporary world. The Festival aims to promote and disseminate documentary film and contribute for an audiovisual archive about the territory.

In the running for the Jean-Loup Passek Award, MDOC selected 32 documentaries that reflect the author’s point of view on social, individual and cultural issues related with identity, memory and border. The Official Jury is made up of Aida Vallejo, professor of documentary film at the University of the Basque Country, Anna Huth, Director of the Institute of Film and Theater Arts at the University of Silesia, Poland, and professor at the Kieslowski Film School, Carlos Natálio, film critic and teacher in cinema at Escola das Artes (EA), from the Catholic University of Portugal, Juan Pablo Gonzalez, Mexican director and professor at the California Institute of Arts (Cal Arts) and Marion Schmidt, co-director of the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE).

The films are also candidates for the D. Quijote Prize, awarded by the IFFS, International Federation of Film Societies, which nominated a Jury consisting of Manuela Lucchesu (Italy), member of IFFS, Margarida Mateus (Portugal), president of Plano Extraordinário – Tomar Film Club and Ponnam Ravichandra (India), journalist and president of the Karimnagar Film Society (KAFISO).

The Jean-Loup Passek Award for the Best Film Poster will be awarded to the designer of an original poster created for a film with Portuguese or Galician production. The Jury is Abi Feijó, director, producer, professor of Animation Film and Director of Casa Museu de Vilar, María Yáñez Anllo, journalist, creator of audiovisual content for the internet and professor of the Master in Social Media and Digital Content at the University of Vigo and Pedro Mota Teixeira, professor at the School of Design of the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave (IPCA).

José da Silva Ribeiro coordinates the Off Screen summer course with a focus on Visual Anthropology/Anthropology and Cinema, based on research projects, audiovisual production and digital narratives.

Pedro Sena Nunes directs the Frontal Shot cinematographic and photographic residencies, which contribute every year to an audiovisual archive on the intangible heritage of Melgaço. In this context, the documentaries and photography exhibitions that resulted from the last residency will be presented during the Festival.

Founded in a predominantly rural environment, MDOC dialogues with the territory and questions local communities about their memories and the future that emerges from an increasingly globalized world. And it does so through the project Who are we here? coordinated by Álvaro Domingues, this year focused on the parishes of Lamas de Mouro and Castro Laboreiro.

In X-RAYDOC, a new section of the Festival coordinated by Jorge Campos, an analysis will bemade of a remarkable film in the History of Documentary. In this edition, the chosen one was Man Marked for Death, 20 Years Later, by Eduardo Coutinho. Luís Mendonça is the guest for the conversation/debate that follows.

In collaboration with La Plantación, director Mercedes Álvarez coordinates the Looking and Filming workshop and Felipe M. Guerra introduces the youngsters to the world of documentary film-making.

The Melgaço Museum of Cinema hosts an exhibition of film posters and, in Lamas de Mouro, João Gigante questions himself and the territory with the photographic project A Landscape called Home in front of a community where the act of caring is part of their day-to-day lives.

Daniel Maciel is the curator of the photography exhibition built from the family archives of Castro Laboreiro and the exhibition Evocation to Father Aníbal Rodrigues, based on his personal archive.

On the weekend of August 6th and 7th, Hop to Melgaço proposes an intensive program, which includes film screenings, visits to exhibitions, the Jean-Loup Passek Film Museum and the Memória e Fronteira Museum.

We are waiting for you in Melgaço. Come and hang out with us whilst watching great Cinema.

AO NORTE