Every year, we take a good look around the world to find out which country could be in our next focus. Seven years ago, Spain – belonging to classic international film countries – already has been center-stage at the festival. The audience’s positive reaction and the hands-on support from Spanish cultural institutions made it (almost) easy for us to decide on Spain as our country focus for a second time. But even more relevant for our decision was to expand the look at Spain and its film-makers – and to give the audience the opportunity to experience promising young directorial talents with their works in the cinema, apart from the grandmasters Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura and Pedro Almodóvar.
And what a great decision this turned out to be! We were able to win the recently opened Instituto Cervantes Frankfurt as a co-operation partner – in the former "Amerika-Haus", a selection from the focus program will be screened in Frankfurt am Main parallel to the festival. Plus we are very happy to have found further co-operation partners in addition to the Instituto Cervantes Frankfurt: The Spanish embassy Berlin, the Spanish tourist offices, the film library in San Sebastian and Madrid as well as the Basqe institute at the J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all co-operation partners for the wonderful collaboration.
exground filmfest 21’s opening film is the German premiere of ROAD SPAIN. A seeming ly betrayed husband leaves his former life behind and goes on a spontaneous trip through Spain. Through wonderful images, Jordi Vidal’s unusual road movie not only shows the surprisingly varied Spanish landscape, but also reflects his protagonist’s mixed emotions.
During the ten festival days we also show the feature films SHIVER, a dark fantasy thriller directed by Isidro Cortiz, the dark apocalypse drama BEFORE THE FALL by F. Javier Gutiérrez, LIFE ON THE EDGE by Ventura Pons, which takes place in the illegal gambler milieu of the 1970s, and the drama A BIT OF CHOCOLATE by Aitzol Aramaio – starring Daniel Brühl in one of the leading roles. In addition, the documentary SEPTEMBERS by Carles Bosch celebrates its German premiere in Wiesbaden: In it, the director followed several candidates of the Spanish version of "American Idol" for one year. What makes this special is the fact that all "idols" are inmates in Spanish prisons. The country focus is topped off by two short-film programs: the first (SPAIN I – DOCUMENTARIES) being dedicated to current Spanish short documentaries, the second (SPAIN II – FICTION & ANIMATION) consisting of short feature films and short animations.
The trip to Spain is completed by director Julio Médem, whose complete body of work we present as a retrospective at the festival.
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