26/03/2024 - The European co-production directed by Vlad Petri triumphed at the festival held last week, alongside The Undergrowth by Macu Machín, chosen as Best Film in the Mirada Canaria section

The 2024 MiradasDoc International Documentary Film Festival held the closing ceremony of its 17th edition last Friday in Guía de Isora, a town on the Canary Island of Tenerife. The jury made up of Alejandro Díaz Castaño, director of the Gijón International Film Festival, Pedro Pimenta, founder of the Mozambique Documentary Film Festival, and Paula Astorga Riestra, artistic director of the Doclisboa International Documentary Film Festival, decided on the winning titles in the categories of Mirada Canaria and Best International Film. In the first section, The Undergrowth [+see also:
film review
interview: Macu Machín
film profile], a film directed by Macu Machín, won. Meanwhile, the feature Between Revolutions [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vlad Petri
film profile] (Romania/Croatia/Qatar/Iran) by Vlad Petri was awarded in the second section for "its exceptional work with the archive to uncover an epistolary story between two women".

Another jury made up of Isona Admetlla (from the Berlinale World Cinema Fund), Ana Fernández Saiz (from the distribution company Impronta Films) and Moustafa Fares Radwan (from the Al Jazeera Documentary channel) decided that the project Los Vencedores, by the Argentinean Pablo Aparo, won the Best DocSur Documentary Award at the MiradasDoc Market (the full list of winners can be found below).

In the last edition of MiradasDoc Market more than 400 business meetings were held, solidifying this event as one of the major documentary film markets in the world. This year, the 17th edition of MiradasDoc market once again hosted the One to One Tenerife section, an ideal space for documentary film professionals to establish collaborative relationships, promote their projects and find new business opportunities. The presence of the Tenerife Film Commission at this event reflects its commitment to developing the audiovisual industry on the island, and to documentary film as a genre with great creative and economic potential.

Concha Díaz, coordinator of the Tenerife Film Commission, emphasises the importance of MiradasDoc Market as a platform to develop documentary film, “attending this market is always a good meeting point to discover the projects from local production companies, and also to raise awareness of the funding opportunities and the help the Film Commission can provide to the projects that come to the festival." The One to One Tenerife section not only boosts the local film industry, but also offers an international platform for documentary film professionals from all over the world to exchange ideas.

The international documentary film festival MiradasDoc 2024 comes to an end with a profound reflection on ethics in documentary film, highlighting the influence and vision of Sergei Loznitsa, winner of the Mirada Personal 2024 award. In the words of David Baute, the festival’s director, the Belarusian filmmaker has suggested that "the only difference that exists between the cinema of the real and the cinema of fiction is ethics".

And in terms of the projects presented, Baute said that MiradasDoc Market has established itself as a vital space for filmmaking from the South, especially from Africa and Latin America, regions close to the Canary Islands that offer a distinctive and original film language. In his words, "these co-production links that are incubated and cemented in our ingenuity - and which for many years have been forged from the Canary Islands - identify MiradasDoc as a driving force that empowers filmmakers from the South to rewrite their own story."

The full list of MiradasDocs 2024 award winners:

Best International Film
Between Revolutions [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vlad Petri
film profile] - Vlad Petri (Romania/Croatia/Qatar/Iran)

Mirada Canaria
The Undergrowth [+see also:
film review
interview: Macu Machín
film profile] - Macu Machín (Spain)

MiradasDoc Market

DocSur Best Documentary
Los Vencedores - Pablo Aparo (Argentina)

Afrolatam Lab Award 2024 Institute of Film Research and Training
Le Parcours - Arice Siapi (France/Cameroon)

Preciosa Media Award
Retoños del Zapoteco - Mónica Martínez Ruiz (Mexico)

Sheffield Award
Le Parcours - Arice Siapi

Subbabel Award
In My Father’s House - Rachida El Garani (Belgium/Morocco)

Impronta Award
She’s Hard Like a Brick - Rogena Tarek (Egypt)

DOCSP Award
Os Dez Terrenos Do Meu Pai - Liliana Sulzbach (Brazil)

DOCSMX Award
Viscitudes de la Luz - Marcel Beltrán (Brazil/Cuba)

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)