Pocket-Size Cinema in Spain: Experiments in Super-8

Visiting on a short west-coast tour, [S8] programmer and filmmaker Elena Duque presents a program of contemporary and historic films made in Super-8mm by Spanish filmmakers.

Founded in 2010, the intimate [S8] Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico has, over the past decade, emerged as an essential film festival in the artist-film community. [S8] –presented annually in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain– offers a mix of solo artist programs, historical retrospectives and curated programs. Visiting on a short west-coast tour, [S8] programmer and filmmaker Elena Duque appears in person to present a program of contemporary and historic films made in Super-8mm by Spanish filmmakers.

As a light, intimate, cheap and flexible format, Super-8 has been a friendly tool to experimental cinema. In Spain, it was the “underground of the underground,” a way of imagining new strange worlds during the dictatorship and in its aftermath, when creativity was not welcome. Today, Super-8 is more alive than ever, thanks to a new generation that has seen the endless potential of the photochemical format, ignoring the doomsayers that say that film is dead.

This program presents a loose and subjective genealogy of the use of this small format in Spain. Featuring formal experimentation and a recurring theme of spirituality, these films transcend the traditions of diary and personal filmmaking, presenting the claustrophobic hallucinations, utopian humor and more.

Screenings

• Sevilla Tenía Que Ser (1979) by Juan Sebastián Bollaín.
• A Mal Gam A (1976) by Iván Zulueta.
• Película Sudorosa (2009) by David Domingo.
• Bionte (2015) by Lucía Vilela.
• Trópico Desvaído (2016) by Valentina Alvarado.
• Una Película en Color (2019) by Bruno Delgado Ramo.