Opening Night
Murnau’s Faust with live soundtrack by the Galician Symphonic Orchestra

Faust, the last film made in Germany by F.W. Murnau, in a new print restored by Luciano Berriatúa, will be the masterpiece opening the 8th edition of (S8) next Friday May 26th in the Palacio de la Ópera. The live soundtrack will be performed by the Galician Symphonic Orchestra, that in 2017 is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The Orchestra will be directed this night by José Ramón Encinar, and it will feature the soprano Ilduara Perianes and the mezzosoprano María Rivera. They will perform the score written by Jesús Torres, awarded with the Spanish National Music Award in 2012, and whose works have been in prestigious venues all around the world.

Under the Shadow of Mefisto
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau is the author of some of the most incredible works not only of silent cinema, but of film history. His are Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Sunrise and Tabu, as dissimilar as pioneers in their aesthetic ambitions, as was Faust, his last film made in Germany. In a Germany plunged into crisis, Faust was a blockbuster made from money overseas at a time when the Europeans who had emigrated were building Hollywood, the factory of myths and dreams. An adaptation of the popular myth (sifted by Goethe) of the sage who sells his soul to the devil, which hid a fierce social critique among his folds. The impressive images are the fruit of the chiaroscuro of photography, the mastery of the framing and the pictorial illusion and the expressionist theatrical illusionism, that evokes the time of Murnau in the company of Max Reinhardt. The acting is a highlight: one of the greatest German actors, Emil Jannings (The Blue Angel) as the iconic Mefisto, the legend of the Swedish theater Gösta Ekman as Faust, and stars like William Dieterle, Camilla Horn and the dancer of the Moulin Rouge, Yvette Guilbert, immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Multiple Faust’s Faces

Luciano Berriatúa (in a collaboration of the Spanish Cinematheque with the Federal Film Archive of Berlin, the German Institute for Film Studies and the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation) was responsible for this restoration, the fruit of a thorough research and a rigorous look. At the beginning of the process, Berriatúa found several versions of the film from eight different negatives, a consequence of a standard practice in the superproductions of the time in which it was usual to shoot with several cameras at the same time to have several negatives and thus to provide prints to the international market. The restoration was made from the shots and the frames with which Murnau made the edition released in Germany in 1926.

Listening to Faust

Fausto will be given a live soundtrack by the Galician Symphonic Orchestra, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017. On this occasion the OSG will be directed by José Ramón Encinar and the singers will be the soprano Ilduara Perianes and the mezzosoprano María Rivera. The score that the Orchestra will play is the one composed by Jesús Torres, winner of the National Music Award in 2012, whose works have toured the most prestigious institutions and festivals in the world. A score released in 2009 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, which is a creative work by right, beyond the simple underline and incidental music whose ambition equates it with an opera or a symphony. Torre, who structures his piece in nine movements, uses strategies such as contrast, an ascending structure and a special use of the human voice to give a personal and autonomous dimension to his work, which manages to offer a new aesthetic experience and open a new dimension in Murnau’s film.

DATE: Friday May 26th. 8:30 pm. Palacio de la Ópera, Glorieta de América s/n, A Coruña.
DURATION: 119 minutos
TICKETS: Online via the ticket service of //ABANCA (entradas.abanca.com) or via telephone in the 902 43 44 43 until 24 hours before the show, from 8 am a 10 pm from Monday to Saturday. The box offices in the Plaza de Orense, from Monday to Friday, except holidays, open from 9.30 am a 1 pm and from 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm. In the Palacio de la Ópera box offices you can buy your tickets the day of the show from 11 am a 2 pm and from 5 pm to the beginning of the show.

Poster and trailer of the 8th edition of the (S8)

The guide figure behind this “Objects and Apparitions” edition of the (S8) is the American artist Joseph Cornell. The poster and trailer of the festival are also aligned with this reference, taking its inspiration from the shadow boxes and collages of the found footage pioneer, one of the most influential artists of the XX century. Using a set of elements that evoke Cornell’s work, including also a gesture towards the 8, this particular drawer wants to reflect as well the inspiration that, we hope, infects our whole program.

Mobileskino Workshop: Do8Yourself

Mobileskino returns to (S8), and this time with workshop that emerges from their latest projecto, Do8Yourself, where we will learn to create our own strips of 16mm film from digital material. The work of this group from Basel, Switzerland – where filmmakers, technicians, animators and sound artists meet- is guided by research and play about analog cinema and the possible ways of combining this technology with a thousand mechanical, electronic and digital devices. A work that blends digital technology with the audiovisual experiments of the beginnings of cinema in the nineteenth century, a conjunction that gives rise to Do8Yourself, a call to ingenuity and self-sufficiency.

The workshop is divided into two work sessions and a public screening. In the two work sessions the artists will teach the process and explain in detail how it works. The videos of each participant will be printed frame by frame in acetate, then the strips of material will be cut and perforated to become 16mm films and be screened. A soundtrack will be created as well, and the transferred to analog format. The final result will be edited as a film that will be seen on Sunday in a screening open to the public, where a string-powered projector and also a string-powered vinyl audio player will be used.

VENUE: Afundación, A Coruña. Cantón Grande 21, 23. 15003 A Coruña
SCHEDULE: Friday 2 from 10 am to 12 pm, and Saturday 3 June from 11 am to 2 pm.
REQUIREMENTS: Each participant should bring some video clips and photos to transfer to film. Although it is not mandatory, we recommend to bring a computer with editing software.
REGISTRATION: At the email address [email protected] heading “Mobileskino Workshop” in the subject line of the message. Limited places.
PRICE: 40 euros.

Mini (S8) Workshop
The expanded image. Film Laboratory and Audiovisual Experimentation

Two mornings of experimentation and audiovisual creation covering in a practical and fun way
key elements of the audiovisual language, in a workshop for children aged 7 to 12 years.

Using analog and digital projection devices, with the help of lenses, magnifiers and flashlights, we will discover the magic and fascinating power of cinema. Thanks to the filmmaker Xisela Franco (http://www.xiselafranco.com/) and the audiovisual artist Juanma LoDo (http://juanmalodo.eu/) we will invent games of shadows, we will create our own audiovisual contents: frames with clippings and we will animate them, we will play with light and with all kinds of animate and inanimate objects. All this will be recorded with digital video recording devices (DSLR camera, camera-phone, HD webcam…) and we will project it again to move ahead in the process of creating new languages ​​and audiovisual narratives.

So in the course of this fast and hallucinatory trip we will know some pre-cinema toys,
we will discover chronophotography with the experiments of Muybrige and Marey, or we will sample the primitive cinema (Alice Guy, Lumière brothers, Méliès). The next step will be to discover the magic of edition (Kulechov, Hitchcock), to experience the association of images that creates senses. And finally we want to elucidate the possibilities that the arrival of the sound meant. To make this journey more interactive in search of the secrets of the fascination of cinema, we will use cybernetic and digital technology, and alternate different software so that the computer will become the final catalyst for our own images, sounds and sensations.

VENUE: Luis Seoane Foundation, San Francisco Street, 27, A Coruña.
SCHEDULE: Saturday, May 27 from 11 AM to 2 PM / Sunday 28 May from 12 AM to 2 PM
REGISTRATION: At the email address [email protected] heading “Mini (S8) Workshop“ in the subject line of the message. Limited places.
PRICE: € 10

Come to (S8) in Renfe

What could be better than coming to (S8) in a train? Time for reflection and panoramic views on the go, a perfect preparation for the days of concentration around cinema. One more year, the Spanish train company Renfe offers a special discount to the audience of (S8). Those who are considering to come and who want to benefit from this discount, please write to the following email address: [email protected], including in the email your full name.