The Americana Film Fest is celebrating. The North American independent film festival of Barcelona is already ten years old and to celebrate it has prepared an extensive program of 36 feature films and 32 shorts divided into four sections: TOPS, NEXT, DOCS and SHORTS that can be tasted between March 7 and 12 in the Girona, Zumzeig and Phenomena cinemas. "Ten years after that first session at the Girona of The Kings of Summer, the Americana has shown that indie is a cinema that is close, imaginative, brave, risky and a source of ideas and feelings", explain its directors Xavi Lezcano and Josep Maria Machado.
The contest will kick off on Tuesday with Beauty and Pain, by Laura Poitras, a documentary nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Lion at the last Venice festival that addresses the opioid epidemic in the United States. It will arrive in theaters on March 10. The retrospective of this edition, in collaboration with the Filmoteca de Catalunya, will be dedicated to Todd Solondz, one of the most personal filmmakers of North American independent cinema, with titles such as Wiener-Dog, Happines, Things that are not forgotten, Life in times of war and Dark Horse.
Over six days, highlights will be screened such as Falcon Lake, by Charlotte Le Bon, an atypical fantasy film with a disturbing atmosphere; Anthony Shim's Riceboy Sleep, about a Korean single mother raising her son in suburban Canada; War Pony, crowned in Cannes with the Camera d'Or and co-directed by Gina Gammell and Riley Keough --granddaughter of Elvis Presley--; Emily the criminal, by John Patton Ford; The Hate Club, by Beth de Araújo, Palm Trees and Powerlines, by director Jamie Dack, and Sharp stick, a sex comedy by Lena Dunham.
The documentary section, with eight pieces, presents, among others, All these sons, by Bing Liu; A compassionate Spy, by Steve James, and The Pez Outlaw. In addition to Poitras' documentary, Shaunak Sen's All that Breathes is also an Oscar nominee and a mesmerizing Cannes and Sundance award-winning story that reminds us how small gestures can improve the world. In the shorts section, the traditional Sundance Festival titles session will be held, as well as three more sessions with productions nominated for the Oscars and present at other festivals.
The closing will come from Acidman, directed by Alex Lehmann, one of the benchmarks of current independent cinema thanks to titles like Paddleton or Blue Jay. It is an intimate film starring Dianna Agron and Thomas Haden Church full of nostalgia and with several accumulated awards that uses science fiction as an excuse to deal with personal relationships.
