The Badalona Film Festival, FILMETS, returns this year to face-to-face with 236 films. Among them, 218 shorts will compete between October 21 and 30 at the Teatro Zorrilla in Badalona, the Institut Français in Barcelona and the Can Castellet cinemas in Sant Boi de Llobregat, the three official competitive venues of the festival.
FILMETS returns to its one hundred percent face-to-face format after two years of uncertainty and online formats due to the pandemic. Thus, all the films will be presented in the three competitive venues already mentioned and seven more non-competitive venues, including the Institut Guttman in Badalona, the Germans Trias Hospital in Badalona, the headquarters of the IFP-Grupo Planeta or the Teatre Margarida Xirgu.
Teresa González, Tenente and Councilor for Territory, Housing, Sports and Health in Badalona, has presented the slogan for the 2022 edition: “short is better”. With this play on words, the organization of the festival intends to value short films, which are highly undersubsidized and with a lot of invisible young talent.
With this premise, the festival will kick off on October 21 with the short film winner of the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival 2022, The water murmurs. This Chinese production is by director Story Chen and its screening at FILMETS will be its premiere in Catalonia.
FILMETS 2022 will have 35% premieres in its programming and 20% of the short films are first films. Among all the proposals, La inquilina with Belén Rueda as the protagonist stands out; Object of Life, an animated short by the philosophical Jack Parry; Penalty Shot, the exciting story of two children who dream together directed by Rok Bicek; or Little Berlin, a mockumentary by Kate McMullen.
Like every year, the festival offers a great diversity of themes and genres. The artistic director of the festival, Agustí Argelich, has highlighted the rise of comedies after the pandemic and also of police genres. Consequently, the screenings of FILMETS are presented in 36 differentiated thematic sessions such as Filmets en Familia, LGTBIQ, Feminisms or Don't Make Me Laugh!, among others.
In addition, the festival offers special sessions of Filmets Pro, which are aimed at professionals in the sector, which will be presented in a hybrid format between face-to-face and online. The objective is to promote emerging initiatives within an ultra-competitive industry.
One of the greatest prides of the Badalona Film Festival is being a prescriber of quality productions of emerging talents. For this reason, this year the festival, together with Audiovisual Producers of Catalonia (PAC), present a new award, the PAC Emergent Producer Award. With this recognition, the winning short will directly enter the short list of finalists for the Goya Awards.
Also, this year the Venus de Honor FILMETS 2022 award is presented to one of the most recognizable faces on Spanish television, Lluís Marco. The man from Badalona will receive the award on October 24 at the Teatre Zorrilla in recognition of his film career, both in short films and feature films, and also for his career as a voice actor and dubbing director.
Finally, FILMETS does not forget its roots and organizes two initiatives to promote interactivity with the people of Badalona, the city where the festival was born.
In the first place, the educational project carried out by the Blas Infante theater continues, in which more than 5,000 primary and secondary school students will attend to see short films from the festival's program appropriate to their growth and training.
On the other hand, this edition will premiere the documentary En trànsit, produced by Badalona Comunicació. The screening will take place on October 21 at 7:00 p.m., just before the Opening Session. The documentary recounts the experiences of survivors of the fire in an industrial warehouse in Badalona on December 9, 2020. It also includes the testimonies of firefighters, social educators and jurists who speak of the complex reality of these premises and the legal framework that regulates the policy migratory.
The Badalona Film Festival, FILMETS, returns for its 48th edition with a format like the ones before the pandemic, fully face-to-face and bringing people closer to emerging film talent. Tickets to the different sessions are free and the 236 films can be seen between October 21 and 30.
