The soundtrack of the 69th edition of SEMINCI echoes through Valladolid.

Music will be present in Valladolid during the 69th edition of SEMINCI before and after the films.

• Javier Vielba (vocalist of Arizona Baby) has composed and recorded the new oficial soundtrack of the festival, which will be played before each screening alongside the musical compilation made by Maribel&Sebastian.
• The talent of 22 local groups will accompany the presentations of the different sections of the programme and films published on the SEMINCI website and social media accounts.
• The festival’s film programme is accompanied by a line-up of concerts on the streets, in the cinema and in public venues.

Valladolid,16 October 2024. For this 69th edition, which will begin on 18 October, SEMINCI aims to achieve the ambitious task of bringing the audience closer to the experience of seeing a film at our Festival, a memory that the spectator will hopefully always remember with the excitement and joy. This emotions are evoked through the music composed and performed by Javier Vielba, vocalist and guitarist of the Valladolid band Arizona Baby, with the sound production of Oskar Vizan, a Valladolid native who works regularly in London.

The theme tune, which will be premiered at the 69th edition, will be accompanied by a new video header that will be screened at the beginning of each of the screenings and activities of the festival. In this way, SEMINCI is also renewing its audio identity, just as this year’s edition has also seen the premiere of a redesign of the iconic lips that have become the image of this year’s poster.

‘Electronics has allowed me the necessary abstraction so that the tune predisposes the spectator to enter that space-time capsule that takes you to real or imaginary worlds represented by a cinema, but without being too invasive, just evocative, even cosy, and sufficiently abstract to cover any genre or style’, explains Javier Vielba about the creative process. In addition to references of electronic music for cinema such as Vangelis or Jean-Michel Jarre, the musician wanted to include a nod to the Castilian jotas and in the tune a small cry that is heard, the human counterpoint to the electronic abstraction. ‘Above all, I wanted the audience to be predisposed to watch a film. To materialise these emotions in music, I’ve had a lot of headaches trying to get those emotions into music, but it’s been a beautiful challenge.

I’ve spent months discarding, cutting and grinding until I came up with this version and developed it. It has been a very gratifying process’, says Javier Vielba.

The musical identity of SEMINCI, created with the aim of linking in the audience’s memories of the Festival with the experience of watching a specific film, is not limited to the tune. Before each screening, while the spectators wait in their seats for the lights to go down, the responsibility of getting them into the right frame of mind to leave the world outside and immerse themselves in the Festival’s offerings is the responsibility of the musical ambience designed by the compilers Maribel&Sebastian. Songs by The Blaze, Metronomy and Broadcast, appeal to love, desire and affection from a different perspective, like the films in the Meeting Point section. A list in which renowned singers such as Nina Simone, Nico and Françoise Hardy are paired, as in the Official Section, with the heterodoxy and the new sound of Adiós Amores, Carla Morrison and Billie Eilish. They also pay small tributes to albums that are celebrating their 25th anniversary, such as 69 Love Songs, by The Magnetic Fields, 69 songs to listen to before enjoying the films, like the 69 years that SEMINCI has been paying tribute to cinema in Valladolid.

Just as the programme of the 69th edition pays special attention to filmmakers from Castilla y León, from the sections Castilla y León in Short and Feature Films, to meetings and industry activities, SEMINCI wanted to give visibility to the musical talent that brings together the artistic scene in Valladolid. To this end, some twenty musical groups and artists have been featured in the audiovisual materials published on the website and social networks announcing the programme and planned activities. The artistic selection consisted of Aníbal, Brezmes, Cabeza de Gallo, Campo Grande, Chacho Cósmico, Delameseta, Dulzaro, El Nido, Euphoria & Carlos Escobedo, Filter Fauna, Free City, Jose Carreño, Las Bulsara, Los Recuerdos, Manusser, Maref, Onira, Rocío Torío, Sharon Bates, The Levitants and UnderWallace.

Official section video

The symbiosis between music and film will reach its peak at this 69th edition with two live performances. On Tuesday 22nd, at 10 pm, at the Broadway cinemas, the video-concert Taming the Light will establish a dialogue between three musicians, a sound technician and a VJ on original music by Oihan. This personal project by Guillermo Aragón, drummer in the bands Arizona Baby and Cosmic Birds, and singer and composer in Tuxedo, consists of an interaction between music and image in a cinema, a journey through opaque and dense atmospheres, filtered by light, the most conditioning and transversal element of visual language from the beginnings of photography to contemporary cinema.

The next extraordinary concert will unite the master of suspense, Alfred Hitckcock, with the Symphonic Orchestra of Castilla y León (OSCyL) on Friday 25th October at 19.30 in the Miguel Delibes Hall. Together they will relive, almost one hundred years after its premiere, the director’s last silent film: Blackmail. The audience will be able to discover, or re-watch, in the original version with subtitles in Spanish and intertitles in French, the story of Alice, a young woman who commits a crime, and her boyfriend Frank, the Scotland Yard detective in charge of the investigation, with the soundtrack composed by Neil Brand in 2008 for this film.

The North American Timothy Brock, an outstanding score conservationist who specialises in live performances of silent films, will take the podium to conduct the ensemble from Castilla y León. Seminci and the OSCyL will repeat this collaboration, which has the support of the Junta de Castilla y León, which since 2008 has offered the experience of live music screenings of silent films such as Metropolis, Nosferatu, Battleship Potemkin and Modern Times.

Musical proposals for the evening and the vermouth hour

As a novelty in this edition, at weekends, SEMINCI has organised three vermouth sessions to start the cinematic day with a musical aperitif in front of the Kafka and Bizarro venues, near the Teatro Calderón. At the Bendito Vermut sessions, visitors and locals can enjoy free of charge from 13.30 to 15h. the 90’s rock band Doctor Explosion on Saturday 19th; DJ Juan Laforga on Sunday 20th and DJ Pablo Pueblo on Saturday 26th.

After the success of last year’s edition, this year the Alhambra SEMINCI night entertainment programme is back. The festival offers to extend the film days in an atmosphere surrounded with rock, psychedelic pop, indie and electronic music. The entertainment venues Kafka and Bizarro, joined this year by Desierto Rojo, will host a daily line-up of concerts and DJ sessions from midnight onwards, at the end of the last screenings.

The schedule of performances will begin on Friday 18 with the indie pop of Eme DJ and the Dark Disco that characterises Coño DJ at Bizarro; and the rock of Mvd Mvd Mvd (Rufus T. Firefly dj set) and Gerar (Fallen Idols) at Kafka. The session on Saturday 19th will have an eclectic flavour: it will bring to Bizarro the renowned Sergei Rez and Saint, while Ale Acosta (Fuel Fandango) and Boy Division will make the audience dance at Kafka. On Sunday 20th, La Perdiz Roja Dj’s will offer a selection of Castilian urban music at Bizarro, and the sessions at Kafka will be led by Paco DVT, resident of the best-known venues in Valladolid, and Second Dj’s. Monday will be a very special event: the black music vinyl collector Héctor Mingues and the electro-pop of Meneo will perform at El Desierto Rojo. On Tuesday 22nd Melo Soho and DjPage will come to Bizarro and Kafka, respectively, from the Gijón and Madrid scenes. The former opts for contemporary tunes, while the latter dominates soul, rock and funk. On Wednesday 23rd, Don Gonzalo’s selection of indie, 60s music and rock and roll will get the Bizarro crowd dancing, before Andrelo Bicoca swaps his record shop counter for the booth. On the same day, Claudia León and Afro-electronic DJ Flecher will perform at Kafka.

Warming up the atmosphere before the weekend, Yahaira DJ and Queen Africa promise talent and rhythm on Thursday 24th at Bizarro. At Kafka, the sessions will be led by the young Jotapop, who mixes hits and classics, and the electronic versions of pop and rock, indie and new wave played by Intronauta. On Friday 25th, Mediocre Dj and Djake will visit the Bizarro booth; and Delafé Dj (Óscar D’Aniello) and Gerar, Kafka. Closing the sessions on Saturday 26th, after the closing gala, Abraham Boba, voice of the indie-rock band León Benavente, and Inkilino Comunista (Juan Carlos Alonso) will bring together guests and visitors at Bizarro, who will also be able to enjoy the eclectic Boydivision at Kafka.

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