The Seville Film Festival, which would celebrate its twentieth edition in November, is set for the spring of 2024, a change of dates that caught industry professionals by surprise, who received the news with sadness and resignation. A setback for the lovers of the seventh art who used to meet in the capital and for the members of the industry, who have seen altered agendas to release or promote their films.
The celebration of the Latin Grammys in the same month has been the argument put forward by the City Council to justify the change of plans, an explanation that does not convince the cinematographic guild, given that it is highlighted that it has been the bureaucratic problems that have forced to move such an established event on the calendar.
"The perfect storm has formed," explains Agus Jiménez, president of the Andalusian Association of Audiovisual Women, to La Vanguardia. "Someone with no experience in previous editions has been placed at the head of the festival who did not yet have a team in place; municipal elections have been held [the event depends 100% on the City Council] and the appointments of the new government took place at the end of June, so the new director, Tito Rodríguez, has had no interlocutor with whom to talk; and, finally, we are in August and there are still many bureaucratic issues to be done".
Rodríguez took over from José Luis Cienfuegos a few months ago and was the one who proposed, as confirmed by official sources, to alter the date of the festival due to the impossibility of complying with the bureaucratic procedures. Although there are discordant voices on the matter, they all have one thing in common: November is the best date to celebrate the Seville Film Festival. In the spring, with the Feria de Abril and Holy Week, life in the city changes and everything becomes very expensive.
"For many producers, this has been received as a bucket of cold water, because they have plans and a calendar", acknowledges Marta Velasco, president of the Andalusian Film Academy, "but the festival must be supported and help the director, to whom we have already reached out, because we do not know what the circumstances are that the new team has found or how the transition has been. The appropriate date is November, but we are working so that the change in the spring does not pose a risk", he points out.
Who does consider that the modification endangers the image, the brand and the international projection of the festival is Carlos Redondo, president of the Andalusia Film Commission, who thinks that the change is "bad news" for all the professionals of the cinema and for Seville, which in November becomes the forecourt of the European Film Awards. "The reasons given by the City Council are inconsistent, and if the date is changed for technical reasons, the person in charge should be dismissed," he declares. "It is true that the previous director (who resigned from the position prematurely) has not behaved reasonably or loyally towards the festival he directed and has left without doing his homework", he explains. "The industry already has its agenda closed, it has already been decided where the films will be taken to promote them and now there is little room left", he adds.
"The planning has been altered. There will be productions that had the idea of coming here and will have to change their strategies, but this is a very specific thing and in the film industry we are very used to it", says José Alba, president of Ancine (Associació Andalusian de Productores of Cinema). Agus Jiménez fears that the City Council is not "aware" of the importance of the cultural event, of the dimension it has and of the wealth it generates. "I think it has not been a priority and the matter has not been addressed with enough interest," he concludes.
