Hasta el Alba [Till Dawn], the documentary by Horacio Alcalá, has arrived at the 66th edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival. It formed part of the first day’s screening in the DOC.Spain section and was presented to the audience by its director, Horacio Alcalá, along with the assistant director of the National Dance Company and executive producer, Marisol Pérez, the artistic director of the National Dance Company, Joaquín de Luz, and producer Silvia Martínez.
The feature-length documentary, which was produced by the Compañía Nacional de Danza [the National Dance Company] and Inaem, allows the audience to witness behind the scenes of Giselle’s misfortune, a story in which the protagonist sees her inner self broken by heartbreak and falls into an eternal dance that leads her to death and madness. The piece was described by Silvia Martínez as “living art within art.”
The Director of the National Dance Company indicated that the aim of making this film was to “disseminate this art, which, more than an art, is an identity for the dancers.” Despite the fact that the production coincided with the pandemic, Joaquín Luz affirmed that it was an “incredible” process that allowed the stage and audiovisual worlds to converge. “For me, we have to get rid of the label that dance is elitist like opera,” said the director of the Spanish company, “that’s why my impetus as director of the company is to take it as far as possible to the population, both in Spain and internationally, because dance belongs to everyone and this can be seen in the documentary as the camera takes the spectator behind the scenes,” he added.
On the other hand, director, Horacio Alcalá said that during the filming process of the documentary he realised that dance was hard: “There are many aspects that I didn’t understand, especially when I was watching the rehearsals of Giselle, I saw things that I didn’t know why they were there,” commented Alcalá, who added that after some research he realised that “the story of Giselle was necessary to portray everything that Joaquín de Luz wanted to say in the documentary.”
Marisol Pérez as well as Horacio Alcalá, Joaquín de Luz and Silvia Martínez all expressed their gratitude to the festival for allowing them to be part of it with Hasta el Alba. “It wasn’t an easy process, but we made it,” said Pérez. Likewise, Silvia Martínez mentioned that she was thrilled to attend Seminci. “It’s a festival that takes care of documentaries, and that’s something to be grateful for,” said the producer, who added that “films only exist when the audience watches them. This feature film is going to begin to exist, and I hope it will have a very long life,” she stated.Hasta el Alba will be screened again on Monday 25th at Broadway Cinemas at 16.15h.
