Spanish Film Festival comes to Perth

Spanish cinema is more than a casual interest for Natalia Ortiz, the director of the Spanish Film Festival, which this week makes its way to Perth for the fourth time. For Ortiz, Spanish cinema is more than an art form, more than an industry and more than a passion. It is a link to her past.

“I arrived in Australia [from Spain] about 12 years ago,” she explains, “And this festival is a way for me to stay connected to my country, as well as to film. I always thought that if there existed a way to connect those two interests then I would be a very, very happy woman. And I have, so it’s all happening!”

Ortiz laughs at this point, and, with the festival now in its tenth year over East, she has plenty to smile about. While the festival is doing its bit to strengthen Spanish communities within the country, it is also helping to spread the word about Spanish cinema and culture amongst other Australians – and to contribute to Ortiz’s dream vision of a multicultural Australia.

“Despite any political agendas, these kind of festivals are important,” she asserts, “It’s one thing to talk about multiculturalism, but if you don’t actually see it reflected in culture, in music or books or in any part or form of art, then it doesn’t really exist. And I like to feel that, with the festival, I am achieving that. For me that’s what multiculturalism is all about – accepting people who come to Australia with a different outlook and a different way of telling stories.”

Reflecting on her first days in Australia, Ortiz comments, “The one thing that surprised me was that there were not many Spanish films in the cinema, and if there were they were the usual suspects like Pedro Almodovar.” Again, Ortiz laughs at commonly held expectations that Spanish cinema is “all about comedies and Flamenco and hysterical Spanish stereotypes.”

She continues, “I think that things, in this regard, have changed, perhaps because the distributors and the television companies are looking for something different… And it’s also the fact that the audience has changed… now they see that the stories are so different from one film to another that to define them as one is like summarising gastronomy with paella only.” Ortiz then adds, with a cheeky grin, “I don’t know if the festival is totally responsible… but I’d say we’re maybe 75% responsible for this change?”

She suggests that another cause for this shift could well be the concurrent change in film policy with Spain itself. “I’ve watched quite a few films over the past years, and I think finally we are deciding to be a bit more…” she hesitates momentarily, before finally hitting the right word, “honest with our stories. We’re not so worried about selling the films…Finally, directors and, more importantly, the Spanish funding boards are applying more freedom. They’re happy to risk it more. “

This risk-taking extends to increased support for first and second time directors, which, according to Ortiz, is inspiring the development of a “very young and vibrant film industry,” as well as to co-productions with other countries in Europe and in Latin America (a few of which make their way onto the festival programme.) Spanish filmmakers of all ages and origins are opening up now, and finally telling “the stories that they have always needed and wanted to tell,” with a satirical irreverence marking films across the board. Honesty has been on the table since the end of Franco, but now, filmmakers are finally being encouraged to embrace it.

And what this means, for Ortiz, is that the industry is able to share distinctly Spanish stories with people across the world. For her, such film festivals should always be driven precisely by the notion of shared storytelling.

“It would be an interesting exercise to give the same script to, say, a German a French person and an Aussie, and see how each of them would tell the story,” she suggests, “The interesting thing, and the good thing, about it is that we would all tell the story in a different way, but it would essentially remain the story. And that for me is the most interesting part of it all.”


Published in Drum Media Perth, May 2006