The Documentary section of the 27th Malaga Festival kicked off its screenings on Friday the 1st of March with a work dedicated to love in times of artificial intelligence. Directed by the Galician Xacio Baño, the short documentary 'Platónico, platónica', screened at the Festival's new venue, the Sala de Turismo y Deporte owned by the Junta de Andalucía, offers us a very particular vision of this feeling that has inspired so many philosophers, poets, musicians, writers and, of course, film directors.

Along its 9 minutes of duration, the piece, created thanks to the institutional help of the Xunta de Galicia, reflects on love beyond its romantic meaning. ‘Everything started as a game. One afternoon I grabbed an artificial intelligence tool and asked it to describe love with images, but maybe love is the most difficult thing to describe’, confessed Xacio Baño during the discussion after the screening.

The day dedicated to the documentaries in the Official Selection continued with the screening of the feature film 'De caballos y guitarras', by Pedro G. Romero, a director who in 2019 changed Seville, the city where he lived, for Rome. There, as a beneficiary of a grant from the Spanish Academy in Rome, he developed his film while filming with the director Isaki Lacuesta -winner of four awards at the Festival de Málaga in 2015, including the Silver Biznaga and the awards for best director and best actress for 'La próxima piel'- an unusual concert by seven musicians: Alfredo Lagos, Raül Refree, María Marín, Riccardo Ascani, Ciro Biasutto, Bruno Alviani and José Antonio Carmona -Pepe Habichuela-, who performed solos and improvisations for hours in front of half a dozen horses, mules and donkeys from Roman stables.

According to producer Cristina Hergueta, who attended the screening, 'De caballos y guitarras' is 'the answer to the question of why films are made'. This is the initial idea of its director, who has counted on the participation of four filmmakers (Virginia García del Pino, María García Ruiz, María Pérez Sanz and Pilar Monsell) whose testimonies end up guiding the film.

The first day of the Documentary section of this 27th edition of the Festival was completed with the presentation to the Malaga audience of two stories that address the long lives of two women. On the one hand, the short film 'Devenir Rosa', by the young Peruvian filmmaker Valeri Milushka Hernani Valderrama, offers a very sensitive, first-person account of her relationship with her grandmother Rosa, in which two generations confront their fears and expectations.

Finally, 'Aurora', a must-see feature-length documentary that reveals the tough life of the woman whose name gives the documentary its title. Directed by Area Erina, the film delicately portrays the routine of this lonely woman from the countryside.