José Luis Cienfuegos, the perfect director of movie festivals | Cinema: premieres and opinions | EUROtoday

You need to distance your self to know the most important problem: on the finish of the twentieth century, the Gijón pageant was an auteur movie pageant, though with out nice flights, when one of many members of the press division, José Luis Cienfuegos (who died yesterday Tuesday on the age of 60), on the age of 31, took cost of its course in 1995. And sure, Gijón was town of Xixón Sound, and there was a rock and transgressive cultural effervescence, however nobody may think about that Gijón could be the European Sundance in a couple of years. Nobody, besides José Luis. Today within the cinema the Rotterdam and Locarno competitions are talked about as incubator occasions for auteur cinema. Between the late nineties and till 2010 there was solely Gijón. And it was thrilling, vibrant and for these of us who went there, spectacular. A visit to the Shangri-La of the perfect cinema.

In that Gijón, with, amongst others, Fran Gayo as programmer, and Pepe Colubi, as press chief, one got here throughout Tom DiCillo, Lodge Kerrigan, Hal Hartley or Todd Solondz, with a younger Santiago Miter; In the cinemas, Pawel Pawlikowski, nonetheless on the lookout for his place on the earth, appeared to speak about his movies, a newcomer Jonás Trueba, Lisandro Alonso, Kimberly Pierce, Darren Aronofsky, Virginie Despentes, Chloë Sevigny, Fatih Akin, Harmony Korine, Kenneth Anger, Olivier Assayas, Mia Hansen-Løve, Ulrich Seidl, Pedro Costa and Lukas Moodysson, or a actress who jumped into course—Valérie Donzelli—to inform the story of her son’s struggle in opposition to the most cancers that destroyed his marriage. You may see Aki Kaurismäki asking along with his loud voice for one more glass of (the one factor he knew easy methods to say in Spanish on the time) Sovereign. Also, the destruction of two lodge rooms of the now deceased French actor Guillaume Depardieu (who was expelled when he tried to assault Cienfuegos, the blow was intercepted by the bodyguard that his father, Gérard, had paid). Gijón confirmed the brand new traits in cinema and predicted, all the time accurately, those who would succeed.

And but, these festivals weren’t nearly movie. Cienfuegos embraced the concept of ​​a cultural occasion in all its breadth: each night time there have been live shows, it opened an area for the feminist gathering Les Comadres, and it promoted exhibitions. And he already glimpsed an issue for cinema in 2025: both younger individuals have been educated within the love of this artwork or they might get misplaced on the best way to the theaters. It even included a legendary and bold cycle, directed by his nice good friend, Vicente Domínguez, professor of Philosophy on the University of Oviedo: the Universo Media, every version devoted to a subject (concern, hallucination, ache, taboo) by means of talks and evaluation by specialists in very totally different fields and never just for its illustration in cinema.

That happiness ended when he was fired in January 2012 after Álvarez Cascos’s occasion, Foro Asturias, got here to energy within the metropolis. After 17 years of administration of Cienfuegos, the Gijón occasion, transformed into that European Sundance, had reached 80,000 spectators, the twelfth of the yr. rating by public at the moment in Europe, even though by way of finances it was behind different Spanish occasions. Cienfuegos remembered how a part of town by no means understood the solidity and resonance of the guess: on native tv they disgraced him in a reside colloquium that he wouldn’t have introduced Sofía Loren to the purple carpet. He did just like the classics, however within the fashion of Richard Fleischer, Julien Temple or Karel Reisz. They did set foot, by the best way, in Gijón.

Four hundred filmmakers signed a manifesto of their assist. It did not assist in any respect. In trade, he gained the European movie pageant in Seville, the place Cienfuegos was employed months later, to rewrite the competition, to dream of one thing just like what occurred with Gijón.

For the second time, the Asturian reinvented a movie contest, expanded the occasion, and moved to the Andalusian capital in order that they might perceive that he was not a parachutist. He concerned native filmmakers and the Sevillian cultural world basically in order that they assumed that this pageant was additionally theirs. He did it. The periods have been full once more. The European Film Academy introduced its candidacies there and the continent’s creators set foot in Triana. The cultural supervisor fought in opposition to obstacles resembling paperwork and the necessity to clarify to worldwide movie creators and sellers in Cannes and Berlin (fishing locations for his or her programming) why it was fascinating for his or her movies to be seen on the finish of the yr at their pageant. And with their movies, one other myriad of various, fascinating and groundbreaking filmmakers ended up on the banks of the Guadalquivir.

In Seville, conscious of the restrict of being centered on European cinema, Cienfuegos relied on the jewels of the Berlinale and Cannes and on the explosion of what was then referred to as “other Spanish cinema.” He created sections for brand spanking new narratives, and continued along with his obsession: that younger individuals would step into the theaters and uncover that there have been movies for them.

In 2023, it reached its final vacation spot, the Seminci in Valladolid, a pageant that had carried out its personal revolution on the flip of the century with Fernando Lara as director between 1984 and 2004: Cienfuegos thought-about himself a disciple of Lara’s methods of doing issues. Again, reinvention; once more, understanding with politicians who, though the supervisor was not of their ideology, did know easy methods to assist the imaginative and prescient of Cienfuegos; once more, obsession with displaying youth the enjoyment of the venues and connecting with the native cultural cloth. Last yr it programmed a captivating sequence with new cinema indie American, and people referred to as to win the Oscar inside a decade visited Valladolid. Everything, sense of scent of José Luis. The final version, the seventieth, closed on November 1 with greater than 103,000 spectators.

Cienfuegos created a approach of programming: Fran Gayo (who died final May), Alejandro Díaz Castaño and Tito Rodríguez (director and head of programming, respectively, of the revived Gijón pageant) and Javier H. Estrada (head of programming at Seminci) have grown up with him. As a cultural supervisor he was hyper-demanding, intuitive, overwhelming, obsessive-compulsive along with his programming, with out filters or schedules at work, an enormous pusher to deliver extra and higher movies to his occasions, all the time attentive to official roles and to make sure that his festivals had the absolute best consideration by the Administrations… His groups liked him and hated him as a result of he demanded from them what he had beforehand requested of himself, most excellence. Now, when the end result was good, it was a staff success.

This journalist has shared three many years of friendship, discussions (the EL PAÍS Style Book drove him mad), confidences over beers, loopy nights and days of overflowing cinephilia, notorious schedules at large festivals, laughter, existential bitterness and fast walks (at his personal tempo, in fact). No extra calls that ended along with his fast and standard “haha, haha, bye, bye.” With his dying, Europe loses one of many nice movie managers; Spain, to a person who fought for individuals to get pleasure from his ardour, cinema.