It's lights, camera and action for the 14th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival on October 21 with the gala opening night at the at the Palau de Congressos, and festival director and founder Sandra Lipski is extremely excited about this year’s event which runs until October 29. This year’s festival is proving true to its word, its mission of ‘bridging cultures - bridging people’, with those bridges reaching out from Mallorca to every corner of the globe.
One of the big breakthroughs this year was landing Sony as one of the new key sponsors. Two of the company’s directors are coming to Palma from Japan to not only see why this award-winning festival is attracting so much global attention in the film industry but also what Mallorca has to offer the audio visual industry.
The festival is also bringing Hollywood legend Steve Buscemi to the island, known for working with renowned directors such as Tarantino and the Coen brothers, among others. Spanish filmmaker Julio Medem and actress Ingrid García-Jonsson will also be honoured, as will director of photography Fedon Papamichael. And Buscemi’s participation is testimony to the reputation the festival has gained over the years.
“We normally plan these things well in advance, leading actors have schedules we have to work around, agents to talk to and we always try to find a connection to the island - it’s a long process. And in this case, Oscar-nominated and winner of the Cannes Film Festival, Ruben Östlund, a former Evolution awardee and member of the festival board who also has a home on the island, helped us. He met Steve at a different festival in Croatia over the summer, they got talking and the Mallorca festival came up.
"I saw the two of them together on Instagram so invited Steve over and then asked Ruben if he had a connection and felt comfortable approaching him. He did, reached out, told him what a great festival we have here in Mallorca, what a wonderful island it is and Steve said yes. So it’s those little things that make all the difference. More and more people in the industry around the world are talking about this festival in Mallorca and the Ruben/Steve story shows we’re doing something right and that we have a great festival here. I’ve spoken to Steve and he’s very excited about coming and taking part with the screening of Psycho Therapy followed by a Q&A,” Sandra said.
This year’s festival features 130 films from the Balearics and all over the world across all formats from features to shorts, documentaries, music videos and even AI, but one Sandra is also excited about is the documentary Twiggy. This is directed by Sadie Frost, who has owned a house in Mallorca for many years and is a regular visitor, and both Twiggy and Frost will be presenting the film and taking questions at 6pm on October 23 at CineCiutat.
“Being a female festival director and making something happen here, I can really get inspired by these two women. Sadie obviously by starting out as an actress and really coming into her own as a director and just moving forward despite all this negative energy she has received about being an actor and a director. She inspires, she creates beautiful stories and then coming together with Twiggy, who is an absolute icon, is amazing. And the cast or rather the people featured (Dustin Hoffman, Paul McCartney, Joanna Lumley, and Brooke Shields to name just a few) is outstanding. They’re all in the documentary talking about Twiggy and how she changed the world and the perception of women in the fashion industry.
“She was the first female model to say ‘no’ to certain things because she felt it was not right and she created a path showing other young models and other young women in the artistic world that it was, is, OK to say ‘no’ when something doesn’t feel right. So she was a pioneer for that and she talks about that in the film. That’s very exciting for numerous reasons. She had such an impact on fashion and the female image in the 1960s and this amazing ability to reinvent herself over the decades ,” Sandra said.
“The documentary only came out this year. It is very interesting, a very intimate look into her life, her early years and beginnings and how she’s a woman who has lived through it all. I just think it’s so inspirational and also there are so many women who grew up with her. It’s an honour to have the film at the festival,” she said.
“Another new category this year is for first-time feature film directors. I want to also push this to the public because, yes, we’ve got the big features which will eventually be showing at cinemas and on all the platforms, but these new features can only be seen at a few of the very best festivals like this one in Mallorca. We have four debut feature films - Satisfaction, Where The River Ends, Motherland and Situation - and all of the directors are coming, one from Argentina and three from the US.
“So it’s a great opportunity to see the work of new directors who in years to come will have their work on the big screen. It’s happened to a number of participants in the festival over the years, be they directors, producers, cinematographers, actors and actresses or script writers. We’ve seen so many success stories and what is great is that they never forget the festival. We have so many repeat attendees and that’s extremely satisfying and encouraging for me and my miracle team.
"We work so hard for 11 months of the year and at the end of the day we can only do our best, even if things do go wrong which are beyond our control. Yes, I used to have sleepless nights, I do occasionally wake up in a bit of panic asking myself what have I got myself into again. But I’ve done it before, the festival has gone from strength to strength and I think we know what we’re doing now. And that is why we have put Mallorca on the global movie festival map while helping the industry,” she said.
“Like I mentioned, we have taken a big step forward with the addition of Sony as a major sponsor. Sony will bring three new cameras and will join Light and Astera, who make lenses and lighting, and we will set up a film set at the Rivoli so that people can see it and learn how a set is prepared. It will be from 22 to 24 October, from 10am to 2pm, and we will have talks that are open to the general public. It’s going to be a filmmaker’s playground.
“The festival also provides a great platform for Balearic film, and this year in that category, again in various formats, we have some 50 productions. So the festival works on so many levels. It helps to expose local filmmakers to the global market while also introducing that market to Mallorca and what the island has to offer the film industry,” Sandra explained.
“And we can’t ignore Artificial Intelligence. We have a number of talks about how it can be used to benefit the industry and how it needs to be embraced as a force for good because it’s not going away. It’s going to become increasingly prevalent, not just in the film industry but all walks of life, so we’re going to be looking at that. There’s so much happening this year I just want to get started, I can’t wait, it’s showtime for the festival and Mallorca.”
For tickets and more information: www.evolutionfilmfestival.com