With a hundred films and documentaries screened, Cinespaña is ten days of Spain in Toulouse. The festival, which opens this evening with, as is tradition, a fictional film, “Libertad” and a documentary “Un blues para Tehran”, will end on Sunday October 10 with, in French premiere, “Madres Paralelas The last Almodovar. A choice program detailed by Alba Paz, co-director of the festival.

Why have you created a French Critics Jury this year, which awards a New Directors Prize, which is also awarded by the Student Jury?
Alba Paz: It is quite easy in Spain to make a first film. The difficulty is to maintain oneself. And even more to be distributed abroad. In Cinespaña, we love this cinema of young directors. It is a creative cinema, bearer of ideas of innovative techniques and often, it is a cinema which goes far in its commitments. Or, this cinema needs appearances in festivals to be known and distributed. To give it a prize awarded by the Critics is to value it, all the more this jury, there will be festival programmers. This will make it possible to create links with other festivals and to get to know this cinema better.

“El dia del ciné español” is also a novelty…
Yes and who will come back every year. In 2021, the Spanish Ministry of Culture organized October 6 as the Spanish Cinema Day. And everywhere in Spain, the Spanish cinematographic heritage will be recognized. So, as this date coincides with the festival, we decided that we would be the French antenna for this day. Thus, Quai de l’Exil Républicain Español, we will propose, on October 6 (6 p.m.) free entry, preceded by a concert, a screening of the film “The Executioner”, considered one of the best films in the history of Spanish cinema.

Do the nine films in competition have a particular color, genre or theme?
No, it’s very varied. With films of all genres and in different styles and tones … We can see a historical Galician film “Eles transportan a morte”, a surrealist comedy “Un efecto óptico”, or even “Corten! »By Marc Ferrer, very much in the spirit of the very first Almodovar films: few means, colorful, funny, with underground circles as a setting and all in self-mockery

What about the “Cronocrimene” cycle?
Every year, we organize a cycle with the Cinémathèque and there, we wanted to give a nod to the last twenty months… “Cronocrimenes”, these are fantastic films that participate with time, space, parallel worlds . It is the director Nacho Vigalondo, whose cinema is steeped in quirky humor and who is invited to the festival, who inspired us this cycle. From him, we will see several films, including “Timecrimes”, but also works like “Angoisse” by Bigas Luna, “The exterminating angel” Buñuel, “La cousine Angélique” by Saura. Films that run from 1945 to 2020 …

In this Cinespaña, we will find a Portuguese Cinema cycle. Are you leaving the borders of Spain?
In recent years, we have been shining a spotlight on a region of Spain and its cinema: Basque Country, Galicia, Catalonia. We have the feeling that we have gone a little to the end of the theme, and we are taking it to the next level with Portugal. A country with which Spain has not only geographical proximity, a certain community of landscapes but also a common history of dictatorship … In addition, Portuguese cinema is rarely shown in France. On the program of the cycle, in addition to five feature films and short films, a meeting will take place with directors Basil de Cunha and Clara Jost and Miguel Valverde director IndieLisboa, the largest independent film festival in Europe. (Sunday October 3)

The Panorama section is exceptional this year …
Yes ! Usually the Panorama section is devoted to the latest releases of the past year. But there, with the confinements, they were rare… So, we asked critics, directors, producers of their ten best Spanish films of the decade. And they are to be seen in the “Panorama Best Of” ..