Seminci will host Cinema & Piano: two children’s film sessions with live piano music

• The activity, a screening of a program of classical animation short films, will take place on 25 and 31 October at LAVA starting at noon, and will be free entry until full capacity is reached

On this 65th edition, the Valladolid International Film Festival will host Cinema & Piano, an activity for children which will consist of the screening of a program of classical animation short films from the 20s and 30s accompanied by live piano music by musician Miguel Ángel Recio. These sessions will take place at the Valladolid Arts Laboratory (LAVA) on 25 and 31 October from noon, and will be free entry until full capacity is reached.

Cinema & Piano aims to recreate through the instrument’s elegant sound a fascinating sound journey to some of the original soundtracks that accompanied film screenings in the first decades of the seventh art’s existence, until the arrival of films with sound. This fusion of image and sound is brought to us by Valladolid musician Miguel Ángel Recio, who holds several professional music titles by the Royal Conservatory of Madrid. He also holds several Honor Awards and Honourable Mentions, as well as the highest qualification granted by the European Union for Postgraduate studies.

Specialised in the musical accompaniment of silent films and animated shorts from the 1930s, he has given recitals of these characteristics at important festivals and has performed concerts in the main Spanish cities, as well as in Porto, Prague, Berlin, London, Guadalajara (Mexico) and New York. Currently, he works as a professor of music and accompanying pianist at the Castilla y León Professional Dance School in Valladolid.

Film Lovers’ Window

Cinema & Piano will not be the 65th Seminci’s only activity for children and teenagers. On this edition, given the special circumstances in schools throughout Spain, Seminci, in collaboration with the Seville European Film Festival, have joined forces in a pioneering commitment to open a Film Lovers’ Window to younger spectators. This new online section on FILMIN, shared by both contests, will run for three weeks, from the start of the Valladolid contest on 24 October to the end of the Seville Festival on 14 November.

The Valladolid and Seville festivals firmly believe in the power of films as a teaching tool, and have a shared interest in training spectators from an early age. It is a goal that they have consolidated with their educational programs through activities and screenings aimed at younger audiences, such as Miniminci and Seminci Joven in Valladolid, and Europa Junior and Cinephiles Of The Future in Seville.

This proposal, open to elementary and secondary schools, offers an exclusive selection of the best and most recent European cinephile stories: a film channel with 10 films that will allow schools to work in depth and in a transversal way on subjects such as history, natural sciences, languages or art. All interested schools will also receive a complete teaching guide published in Spanish and English or French which teachers can use to work with students. The film selection responded to the criteria of quality, thematic variety and balance by age, with titles that cover a range between 6 and 17 years of age.