El Club de los sin Techo

Director: Claudia Brenlla

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 55 min

The exclusive Pituba neighbourhood in the city of Salvador de Bahía, Brazil. Going along the seafront, just before you get to the famous Itapuá beach, the Clube Português building catches your attention. It is a sports complex, its main building being surrounded by swimming pools, tennis courts, a football field and other facilities. However, it is in really bad condition. Now 85 families belonging to the Homeless People’s Movement in Salvador, the MSTS, live there.

El Somni

Director: Cristophe Farnarier

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 77 min

From the night of past times, a man walks in front of his flock with the rhythm of the seasons. This migrating shepherd belongs to our imaginary collective. Joan "Pipa" is one of the last representatives of a millenarian tradition. We accompanied him in a last migratory journey towards the Catalan Pyrenees. Day after day we shared his privacy, discovering the past and the present of a man who loves his work and breathes the joy of coexisting freely with nature. The earth’s abandonment, industrialization and growth, city development fever, new infrastructure multiplication, and climatic change end the dream, leading us to an uncertain future. Is the disappearance of seasonal livestock migration a sign of progress, or death of our civilization?

La Sal de la Mort

Director: Núria Sala/ Dani Sala

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 29 min

The Llobregat River is the most salinized river in Europe, and Barcelona is the city that consumes the most bottles of mineral water per capita. The responsibility falls on the potash mining exploitation in Bages. In the face of the local administration’s passivity, the mines generate an uncontrollable waste that pollute rivers in a silent, invisible, odorless, and almost imperceptible way. While the waste of the Cogulló (Sallent) becomes the biggest dump in Catalonia, the brine sewer spills constantly and devastates entire forests. Selflessly, a group of friends with an environmental spirit have dedicated their weekends for the last decade to reprimand the toxins that the mining exploitation generates in the drinking water of the Barcelona metropolitan area. “La sal de la mort” is a portrait of these activists, who go through the Llobregat basin analyzing the waters and denouncing - both publicly and legally - the mining company’s conduct and the government’s passivity.

La Voz del Viento

Director: Victor Fornies

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 31 min

Wind is an inspiration for artists and writers, or a trigger for madness… through testimonies of José Luis Borau and Jose Antonio Labordeta, this piece reveals   how wind accompanies the people of the Ebro Valley. For country people, agricultures, immigrants, and pastors, wind can be a friendly or infuriating partner

Manual de Uso para una Nave Espacial

Director: Horacio Alcalá

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 60 min

In Northern Galicia, fishermen catch tropical fish, which they are not able to sell because the local people don’t know about them, as these are fish that are normally found in the Bahamas. Meanwhile in the Ribera del Duero, the grape harvest arrives earlier and later, affecting the wine’s quality. Furthermore, the vineyard areas are moving north. And finally, the disappearance of the bees has caused pollination to decrease, thus in both short and long term, reducing the amounts of plants and trees.

Pueblos sin Camino

Director: Jorge Tsabutzoglu/ Javier Estella

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 45 min

Aineto, Ibort and Artosilla are three villages that in the 1950´s were abandoned due to migratory movements to the cities. Completely abandoned and virtually in ruins, thirty years later they became repopulated by a group of young people who were looking for an alternative life-style, more natural and simple, and founded the Asociación Artiborain. Over time, this association has become one of the main advocates for the eco-community movement in Spain. Fernando, a man from Zaragoza about to retire, takes a journey to meet Jesús, an Artosilla resident, with the firm objective to move to one of the three villages. Jesús, with the help of other residents, will guide Fernando in his process of incorporation and adaptation to the new life-style.

Una Terra, Una Vida

Director: Pere Herms/ Marina Sans

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 59 min

“Una terra, una vida” focuses on the struggle of the Sem Terra (Without Land) activist movement in Brazil. With the mythical figure of Catalan Bishop Casaldàliga as the “soul” of this documentary, this piece follows a group of agricultural activists and their fierce will to have access to land and its cultivation.

Un Mundo de Agua

Director: Ramón Campoamor/ Juan Antonio Rodríguez

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 26 min

Water is life’s authentic elixir and covers more than 70% of the planet’s surface, allowing life to extend in all of its distant corners. Without water our world would be dead, an uninhabited place of no importance. Perhaps this could be enough to rename the Earth “Water Planet”.

Utopía

Director: Lucho Iglesias/ Alex Ruiz

Year: 2008

Country: Spain

Length: 78 min

An intimate and profound look at our capacity to change reality, our lives and the world around us; exploring the infinite ability of human beings to better themselves by developing imaginative solutions to live in connection with life and achieve the impossible: to live our lives to the fullest and respect the world around us. A 78-minute feature film that combines interviews and testimonies of imaginative and surprising lifestyles, accompanied by immaculate photography, stylish graphics and music by Luís Paniagua.  A piece made of hope and dreams brought to reality. Utopia is already here.

© FICMA 1993 / 2009