Interview with Alfredo Cohen, director of elParlante and executive producer of the BIG SCREEN Festival!
How did the idea of a Festival like this come about?
Since our beginnings, 10 years ago, in the Parlante we have explored the possibility of working with older people, especially in intergenerational initiatives that bring young people into contact with their grandparents and the territory. And 4 years ago we started working with several Senior Citizens’ Homes on participatory video projects, where older people tell their stories, what affects them, what grieves them, while dismantling stereotypes and prejudices about the various ways they should envy. The results have excited us and made us think that cinema also has the possibility to know this diversity… And celebrate it.
Why make a Festival specifically about Senior People’s cinema?
And why not? La Gente Mayor is not a collective, it is not a monolithic, closed group. At least in our society, we identify older people from 65 to 95 … It’s 30 very diverse years! Many ways of living them and yet they are usually pigeonholed, they are spoken in the number of them. The representations that are made in the media are full of stereotypes: that they are boring, conservative, that they no longer want to learn, that they do not participate, that they are dependent, that they do not contribute anything new to society. A series of barbarities similar to those said about immigrants or people with functional diversity or different sexual orientations. This Festival is to reflect on these oppressions, on how they cross and on the role that we play as a society in their construction. Taking into account in Spain by 2066 there will be more than 14 million older people, 34.6% of the total population that will reach 41,068,643 inhabitants.
Is it also a Festival for young people?
Of course! The BIG Screen is for the whole family, and for all types of families and people. As well as other themed festivals. This is not a Festival to close on but to open up. The best thing that can happen to us in life is to get old. The opposite is death. This Festival is the perfect excuse to go to the cinema with grandparents and grandfathers, but also to enjoy good films. A place to celebrate the beauty of canes and wrinkles.
Why do you think that there were so many Film Festivals in the city, there was not one like this?
I don’t know, it’s funny, because also, the independent cinemas of the city survive largely because older people use them a lot. I guess it speaks ill of who we are as a society and the place we give to older people. But, the important thing is that it already exists and I believe it has a lot of future.
The festival is free, but cinema is cuesta…
Yes, and it costs a lot. It’s hard to write it, produce it, shoot it, exhibit it… This Festival is free for the public because the
Department for the Promotion of the Elderly of the Barcelona City Council
and other entities – including Cines Girona
– fell in love with the idea and supported it. It’s free because we want the rooms to be filled and for money not to be a problem to attend. But, we hope the message is not wrong. Culture, despite being an intangible of great value, also has an important cost of production, production and promotion. For us it is a launching bet.
What do we see at the Festival and how are tickets reserved?
Harvest 8 largometrajes Top-level internationals, which have won several awards at the most important festivals in the world. We will see about 16 short films in competition. , selected from more than 250 that came to us from all parts of the world, and that enter an official selection . Con un Jury luxury. We will have a very important tribute, which we will tell you and there will be two Cinema forums : Older people + Feminisms, LGTBIQ+ older people.
What will happen after the Festival?
Because we will have an audiovisual hangover-… (Laughter) Because we hope that The BIG Screen! will be a kind of anti-age platform that from culture and cinematographic art generates new forms of expression and intergenerational encounter. Surely we will stay, wanting more.
Ticket reservations can be made through the website http://lagranpantallafestival.elparlante.es/entradas/