The Barcelona International Documentary Film Festival continues to exhibit, with 27 editions already, the most authentic and committed proposals of a genre that "has always been a laboratory of experimentation, both from a formal point of view and exploration of themes and contents", comments Anna Petrus, artistic director of DocsBarcelona, to this newspaper. Agent of happiness, a film that questions the label of Bhutan as the happiest country on the planet, opens today a date that will last until May 12 with a program made up of 40 feature films and 10 shorts with the CCCB and the Cinemas Renoir Floridablanca as headquarters, and with the Filmin platform as a virtual window.
For Petrus, the importance of the documentary is fundamental because it "allows us to enter complex realities" and affirms that "platforms play an important role in reaching the public", but warns that this genre "continues to need private funding so that the creators and creators immerse themselves in the complexity of this reality freely". He believes that currently the documentary "is aligned with all the topics on the public agenda and, thus, in this year's edition we will see stories about female empowerment or feminisms, about AI and new technologies and a big topic about colonialisms that have to do with power relations and how history has been told". In this edition of Docs there are a total of ten works that address this last topic and "reflect the violence left behind by the Europeans and also warn about the great contemporary colonialisms, such as the great Chinese economic giant and its influence on Asia" .
The competition has renewed its structure this year. From now on Docs
The new Docs section
One of the highlights of this edition will be the visit of Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, who returns to the festival to present his new work. Architecton, premiered at the last Berlinale, is a poetic meditation on architecture that warns about the devastating impact of cement.
Another important visit will be that of the prestigious tandem formed by veteran French documentary filmmakers Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, who will receive the Docs d'Honor award and will host a meeting and a retrospective in collaboration with the Filmoteca.
On the other hand, John Wilson, who will give a master class on his How to with John Wilson series, and director Albert Serra, who will talk about his documentary on bullfighting Tardes de soledad, will be the main attractions of DocsBarcelona Industry, the industry section directed by Èric Motjer that will unfold from May 6 to 10.
The films can be seen at the Phenomena, Renoir and Girona cinemas, the CCCB and the Filmoteca.
