Edward Hopper, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, recognized for his paintings about loneliness in contemporary times. Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk-rock collective, famous after their demonstrations against Vladimir Putin and for freedom of expression and LGBT rights in their country. Man Ray, reference of avant-garde photography. And Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch painter of the 17th century, one of the greatest exponents of Baroque art and creator of the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring... are some of the artists, from different disciplines and careers, who will see their paths brought together as protagonists of the Dart Festival, the documentary film competition that focuses on the visual arts, and offers a broad vision of art and the ways of producing it in our time.
The seventh edition of the festival that places visual arts on the big screen is getting closer every day. And 26 documentaries, ten of them premieres in Spain, are chosen to complete the program that will begin this Wednesday in the Phenomena room. The opening will be by Fragments of paradise, a film by director K.D. Davison, which won the award for best documentary at the Venice Festival in 2022, and which portrays the life and work of the Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas, considered the godfather of experimental cinema and one of its greatest exponents.
On this occasion, four points in the city will host the activities of Dart 2023. The Sala Phenomena, the Cinemes Girona, the Disseny Hub Barcelona and The Social Hub Barcelona will share the in-person activities of the festival, which will also have online programming in the Filmin platform, between November 29 and December 31. And film screenings are not the only thing the festival brings. Ten directors and protagonists of the documentaries will be part of the activities. Sylvie Kürsten, director of Tamara de Lempicka, the queen of art deco director and star of While You Live, Shine and Guðrún Olsen, director of Soviet Barbara: The Story of Ragnar Kjartansson in Moscow, are some of the great guests who will attend their projections.
On December 2, the awards gala will be held, where the winners will be announced in two categories: the Laie Dart for best direction and the Laie Dart for critics. The winners will be announced at a party that will take place at The Social Hub Barcelona, in the Poblenou neighborhood.
In the previous edition, the Dart managed to attract 4,000 in-person attendees and 75,000 online, becoming a cultural benchmark in the city.
This event for lovers of non-fiction and visual arts will be in Barcelona theaters between November 29 and December 5, the day on which the festival will culminate with the screening of Beauty and Pain, a feature film by the documentary filmmaker. American Laura Poitras who has accumulated more than thirty awards, including the Golden Lion in Venice and the Bafta for best documentary. It is a film about Nan Goldin, the photographer and activist who was part of the countercultural scene in New York in the 1970s and who has stood up to pharmaceutical companies that enrich themselves at the expense of opioid addiction.
