The short film 'De una isla', directed by filmmaker José Luis Guerin and produced by the César Manrique Foundation (FCM) about Lanzarote and César Manrique, has been included in the program of the XVIII Edition of the Doc Fortnight 2020 Festival, on international non-fiction films and content, organized by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) between February 5 and 19.
Specifically, this poetic approach to the origins and mythical configuration of Lanzarote, 26 minutes in length, will be screened on February 9 and 16, along with other shorts produced in Great Britain, the United States, Taiwan and Portugal, all grouped under the heading 'I'm looking through you'.
'De una isla", described by the organizers of the New York festival as "a meditation on the volcanic terrain and the turbulent history of Lanzarote", premiered in Lanzarote in May 2019, at the Multicines Atlántida, within the program of the centenary of César Manrique that the institution that bears his name will continue to celebrate until April 24, 2020.
After its premiere in Lanzarote, the short film has traveled to festivals as prestigious as Locarno, in Switzerland, last August; the Seville European Film Festival or the Barcelona Independent Film Festival L'Alternativa, among other film circuits.
César Manrique's awareness of the territory
Investigating the legacy of César Manrique and responding to a commission from the FCM, Guerin asks himself if there is a case in the History of Art equivalent to that of this creator who, "almost alone, achieves such a radical change on his own territory. A profound and lasting change based on the reading and interpretation of the landscape, in short, on the awareness of the territory itself."
According to the renowned filmmaker, author of such celebrated films as 'En construcción', 'Innisfree' or 'En la ciudad de Silvia', he surveyed Lanzarote "seeking to reveal the mystery of this great landscape drama that the island embodies, scrutinizing vestiges and clues provided by the winds, minerals, botany and myths on the ground and identifying in all of this a mirror of the human." And, "attending to Manrique's artisanal claim", he worked those images on photochemical support "evidencing their own materiality", through "the glazes, the grain and the texture that he wished to merge with that of the basalt of the island".
In his film career as director and screenwriter, José Luis Guerin (Barcelona, 1960) has combined fiction and documentary, blurring the boundaries between the two genres. In 2001 he was awarded the National Film Award and a Goya for Best Documentary Film for 'En construcción'.
