Woodstock and Chaplin’s birth, among the anniversaries 64 Seminci will be celebrating

04/10/2019.- The International Film Week of Valladolid, will be programming for this 64th edition a series of film sessions to commemorate several anniversaries that are close in time, such as the birth of a culture figure like Charles Chaplin, the shooting of the titles that have marked an era in Spanish film such as El crimen de Cuenca or El bosque del lobo, historical events such as the end of the Civil War and the Cuban war, the celebration of the legendary festival Woodstock and the founding of Agencia EFE.

64 Seminci will be celebrating three purely cinematographic anniversaries. The festival will be displaying the documentary Regresa El Cepa, by Víctor Matellano, that revives the events surrounding the film El crimen de Cuenca, the filming of which was 40 years ago, as was the scandal generated by its release, with the seizure of the copies and the prosecution of its director, Pilar Miró. The documentary included, among others, the testimonies of Guillermo Montesinos, José Manuel Cervino and Héctor Alterio, three of the actors in the movie.

The festival will also commemorate the 40th anniversary of the filming of El bosque del lobo, by Pedro Olea, to which the Spanish Film Gala will be paying tribute. Olea, to which 51 Seminci dedicated a series, is one of the greatest filmmakers from the 70s generation, author of some of the most remembered Spanish film titles, such as No es bueno que el hombre esté sólo (1973), Pim, Pam, Pum… ¡fuego! (1975) and Un hombre llamado Flor de Otoño (1978), among others. El bosque del lobo, premiered at the Week as El bosque de Ancines, was awarded the price San Gregorio at the Religious Film Week, one of the first awards in Olea’s career and the success in Valladolid of which was key to a film reflecting “dark Spain” and mixing superstitions and religion not being forbidden.

Modern Times with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, OSCyL

Seminci is also collaborating for an eighth year with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (OSCyL) in order to fusion film and music with the screening of classic silent film Modern Times, with which the festival would like to commemorate the 120^th anniversary of its director and main actor, Charles Chaplin. As is tradition, the screening will take place on Friday 25 October at the Sala Sinfónica of Cultural Centre Miguel Delibes. Directed by Rubén Gimeno (Valencia, 1972), the OSCyL will be interpreting the score created by Charles Chaplin, which was restored by Timothy Brock in 2002.

Celebration of several historic events

On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of Woodstock, Woodstock: Three Days of Peace, by Michael Wadleigh, on which the director documents the famous festival, held in Bethel in August 1969, will be screened. The event brought together 450,000 people, gave name to a generation and marked an entire era. Michael Wadleigh undertook the difficult task of documenting Woodstock Music Festival, which he filmed during the three days it took place but his approach went well beyond the shows on the stage. The documentary, which condenses in three hours more than a thousand film rolls, was awarded the Oscar in this category in the year 1971.

Another event being commemorated through a film session will be the 80^th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War. On this occasion, Generalísimo, la vida de Franco en color, by Luis Carrizo, is programmed. This documentary draws a rigorous and intense biographical portrait of the dictator with materials from the files of the Filmoteca Española and is presented for the first time in colour images, treated with the most innovative digital techniques for them to revive with full force and take the viewer to an unknown setting.

Inocencia, a feature film directed by filmmaker Alejandro Gil, commemorates the 120^th anniversary of the end of the Cuban War. The film is based on the real events that occurred on the Caribbean island in 1871 when some first year Medicine students from the University of La Habana were jailed due to wrongful accusations.

The 80 years since the creation of Agencia EFE will also be commemorated with the documentary La Agencia, a production by Agencia EFE and 93 metros, filmed in cinematographic style and which shows the lives of several EFE reporters on eight different points on the globe, with their personal stories being linked to big current global issues such as the Mexican migration crisis, the melting glaciers, the Ebola epidemic in Africa and the armed conflicts in the Middle East, highlighting the importance of being  on the ground, giving true and quality information.