This year's poster was designed by local designer Pablo Vidallet.
Darío Vidallet, councilor for culture and heritage of the Mequinenza City Council; Abraham Martínez, deputy of Zaragoza and Javier Rodes, director of the event presented the IX Mequinenza International Film Festival, which this year will pay tribute to silent cinema.
As is tradition, animation will take center stage on the first day of the 9th Mequinenza International Film Festival (MIFF), organized by the Mequinenza Town Council and the local production company Film Factory. The festival kicks off at the Sala Goya on Thursday, August 29th at 6:00 PM with the opening ceremony and runs until Sunday, September 1st. The closing ceremony and awards presentation will be held on Saturday, August 31st at 6:00 PM. The final day of the festival has been reserved for a tribute to silent film.
At the press conference held at the Zaragoza Provincial Council, Provincial Deputy Abraham Martínez highlighted the importance of a cultural event like MIFF for rural areas, “where it is more difficult to launch these kinds of initiatives, maintain them over time, and achieve the impact it has, which has led it to cross borders and become an essential event for the sector.” For his part, Darío Vidallet, Councilor for Culture and Heritage, emphasized “the commitment to culture and the dissemination of heritage that the City Council has always shown” and referred to other initiatives that have been launched, such as the Mequinenza Amateur Theatre Competition, the “A Sol y Serena” Street Performing Arts Festival, and the recently launched Culture, Art, and Heritage Series, “which fill the town with activity.”
One of the new features of MIFF, as explained by the Festival Director, Jaier Rodes, is the adjustment to the program, bringing forward the closing day by one day to accommodate this event. It will transport attendees to the beginning of the 20th century with screenings of Charles Chaplin films accompanied by live music from the Aragonese chamber music ensemble Ensemble Al Inte. In fact, the 2024 edition "has a touch of 'archaeocinema' to remember the pioneers and highlight the role of cinema in recovering and disseminating topics that often don't find a place in mainstream media."
This is reflected in the Festival poster, inspired by the iconic image from the 1968 film "Planet of the Apes," in which the Statue of Liberty can be seen half-buried on a beach. Local designer Pablo Vidallet has replaced this with a marble statue's hand holding a camera emerging from the Ebro River, in whose bed, at an unspecified location, lies the Roman settlement of Octogesa.
Another highlight of the ninth edition is the inclusion, for the first time, of an international jury, featuring American actress Katie Lynn Stoddard and Italian actor Gianpaolo Gentile. Stoddard joins the official selection jury, which also includes Mequinenza residents Igor Arán and Violeta Copons, actor and screenwriter Pol Cardona, Festival Director Javi Rodes, and Councilor for Culture Darío Vidallet. Gentile joins the jury for the "Río Bravo" section, dedicated to Westerns, alongside Mequinenza filmmaker Enrique Novials and Zaragoza-born director, producer, and screenwriter Sadie Duarte. This section, introduced last year, has seen a tenfold increase in the number of entries this year.
Between Thursday and Saturday, the 26 finalist short films from 12 countries will be screened. These films were selected from 3.151 submissions received from 131 countries, all sharing water as a common theme and the leitmotif of the festival. They will compete for the "Silucams," the MIFF's statuettes—half catfish, half film projector—for Best Fiction, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Aragonese Short Film, Best Western, and the "Antonio Blas" Audience Award. Each award includes a cash prize of 200 euros. In addition to these prizes, the best documentary will receive broadcast rights on Aragón Televisión, and there will be honorary mentions for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography—distinctions added to the MIFF awards in 2023.
