As has been the case with each edition of the festival, it has aged another year. “We’re now into our teens”, and through that ageing process it is has grown, matured and improved year-on-year.
Since the first festival in Mallorca, EMIFF has been named ‘One of Europe’s 10 most exciting Film Festivals’ by The Guardian. It continues to be ranked as one of MovieMaker’s ‘TOP 50 Film Festivals Worth The Entry Fee’ as well as appearing continuously on the 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals list on Freeway, ranking in the top 1.5% of more than 8,000 film festivals and creative markets around the world.
This year, the goals and ambition of the festival have branched out yet again and in fact have already begun. EMIFF and the Mallorca Preservation Foundation are presenting the 1st Environmental Film Series ‘Conscious Cinema’ at the festival and the first screening of the documentary Sonic Sea was held on September 19. “The idea of the cycle is to bring awareness to certain problems in the world about our environment and society and circle them back to how they affect us here in Mallorca. Sonic Sea, for example is about how maritime noise disrupts and has a negative impact on marine life, in particular dolphins and whales, and that is happening around the globe including here in Balearic waters. So, we’ve had our first screening and there are three more until November 13. Each screening is also followed by a Q&A with an expert in the field of the documentary.
“I think that sometimes we feel, and I say this in a larger sense, not only environmental wise but culture and social wise, we live in this bubble in Mallorca. I just want people to realise that these problems exist and reflect on them. I think we have to consciously understand more that we’re part of the bigger society of the world and not always think that because we live in Mallorca we don’t have to deal with problems that are happening elsewhere in the world. There again, we don’t want to put people in a bad mood by raising these themes, topics and problems. I just think it’s important that we understand that they exist and see how we can help to make Mallorca a better place, not only now but also for the future and our children. I guess we want to inspire people and burst the bubble for some of us live in here in Mallorca,” Sandra told the Bulletin at the Portixol Hotel which, as always, is the main sponsor and headquarters for the festival.
“Tickets are free for the showings and the talks and can be obtained via the festival website, as can tickets to the rest of the festival programme of events. There are many this year plus some super exciting new ones,” she added. “The main event is going to be presenting Annette Bening with the Icon Award. The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony, which she will attend, and she will also introduce and discuss a special screening of Stephen Frear’s The Grifters, for which she received her first of five Academy Award nominations in 1990. She is great, she is real Hollywood royalty. I’m really giddy about her coming and hope everyone else is going to be too.
A seal of quality
“What is so special about her coming is that she has no connection with the island. She doesn’t have a house here, she hasn’t been here a million times, she doesn’t support the festival because she’s not part of the Mallorcan celebrity society, she’s coming because we invited her. She looked up the festival, she loves what we do and she thinks it’s important to support it and she really appreciates the honour that we’re giving her. You know, looking at the track record of that award having been given to the likes of Danny DeVito, Melissa Leo, Mads Mikkelsen and all these great people, I think is extra special to me because I’m not saying that it’s easier to get someone to come to the festival like Mads who has two houses here and it’s his second home; at the end of the day it’s always to do with schedules. But I think it’s more of a seal of quality and appreciation for the festival when someone from the outside comes all the way to Mallorca - and they also get to experience the island.
“So it’s really exciting, not only to have Hollywood royalty here but the fact that she’s going to be participating in the festival with a Q&A after the screening of Grifters, which she made with Angelica Huston and which she said she wanted to show at the festival here in Palma because it means so much to her and she wanted to share that. And we’re going to show American Beauty at the drive-in cinema. Then she’ll do a film talk,” Sandra revealed.
Spanish premiere
“We’re also going to have the Spanish premiere of the film called The Outrun, a co-production between the United Kingdom and Germany, which stars the famous Oscar-nominated Irish actress Saoirse Ronan along with an amazing British cast. So that’s super exciting,” she added.
“Another thing that is really cool this year is that we’ve started The Evolution Script Lab. In the past we’ve always held a screenplay competition. Writers would submit their scripts which would be read by a team based in the States and Spain. Then we would pick around ten finalists in various categories, including one for the Balearics. But when we saw that so many of the writers were coming to the festival this year, we decided to announce the winners on the final night and award them with their prizes here in Palma. Plus the Script Lab will have three seasoned script doctors and they will review the scripts. Each writer at the festival will have a 15-minute session with one of the doctors so they get one-to-one feedback, which is priceless for script writers. You know, when you submit a script of anything from 90 to 120 pages, who is going to read it? The assistant of an assistant of another assistant reads them and is the feedback real? So we decided to go for it and give those script writers coming a unique opportunity here in Mallorca,” Sandra explained.
“What’s even more exciting is that the winners will be presented to a host of top producers and film makers coming to the festival from across the world as well as representatives from the main streaming platforms, so we’re offering them a major bridge to cross into the industry. Plus, one of our main sponsors, Palma Pictures, will get the first look at the scripts. They give 25,000 euros of in-kind grants to all of the winners so that they have the option of approaching Palma Pictures to shoot with them and they already have some money in the budget,” she added. “It’s a good kick start.”
80 countries
This year’s festival received just over 1,200 entries from 80 countries. “It’s wonderful to think that, through the festival, Mallorca has reached out to filmmakers, script writers, producers in countries like Nepal, Korea, the State of Palestine, Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel ... the list goes on. And it’s not just the fact they want to enter our festival, they want to come to Mallorca. Just think, the film industry in over 80 countries is talking about Mallorca because of this festival. That’s what we set out do. Create a world-class festival in a premier destination,” she said with a smile.
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