The aim of the Granada Film Festival "Cines del Sur" ("Cinemas from the South") is to disseminate and promote films made in the countries of the so-called geopolitical south. Thus, the Festival will provide a space for the meeting of young filmmakers and established talents from these countries, and therefore, it will allow the screening of both new productions and emblematic and historic works. The Festival will be the platform for an annual meeting of films coming from the South.

There was a time, back in the fifties, when the West discovered cinema from the East. Such cinema, obviously, had been around for some time, but it had rarely reached our screens and we knew almost nothing about it. We then discovered the work of its great masters, the main lines of strength of its production, its most frequent genres and subgenres... With time, oriental film even became a favoured topic of theoretical attention and academic work. The voyage is far from over, although soon the geopolitical South began to take on clear protagonism in specialized journals and festivals all over the world. In the age of the new cinemas (with Latin America being at the head) and the emergence of young filmmakers in the most remote corners of the planet (mostly, but not exclusively, sub-Saharan Africa), this South was demanding the attention it had never before received and finally the international circuit of festivals seemed willing to comply.

The Granada Festival Cines del Sur now joins that circuit, and it does so with the intention not of making untimely discoveries but rather of contributing to the public's knowledge about a subject the wealth and diversity of which have been amply demonstrated. Far from falling into that monolithic stereotype which, from comfortable ignorance, some people attribute to them, cinemas from the South offer images as varied as they are vibrant, and which our Festival now intends to make available to the public, for the enjoyment of viewers. Fiction and documentary -as well as any middle ground or hybrid formula-, commercial productions and also films of the auteur tradition, celluloid and digital, all quality films produced in the South will find a place within the design of the Granada Festival. The idea is to add, not take away. The idea behind the Festival is to provide a ductile container which, through its various sections, including some essential historical retrospectives, does justice to a flank of world production whose value is not always acknowledged. "What is important now," said the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray a quarter of a century ago, "is not so much that in the West they understand our films but simply that they see them."

We're working on it.

Alberto Elena
Programme Director - Cines del Sur


El Festival de Granada Cines del Sur tiene como objetivo la difusión y promoción de las cinematografías de los países habitualmente adscritos al Sur geopolítico. Propiciará tanto el encuentro con creadores consagrados como con nuevos talentos, permitiendo mostrar nuevas producciones junto a títulos emblemáticos y de significación histórica. Granada se convierte así en un foco anual para las cinematografías del Sur.