The short films 'Dos cipreses', the new work by the very young director Nicolás Martín Ruiz, and 'Corre o vento', by the Galician directors Paula Fuentes and Guillermo Carrera; and the feature films 'Saturno', by the filmmaker Daniel Tornero, and 'Pepi Fandango', by the Croatian filmmaker Lucija Stojevic have been the proposals of this first Saturday in the Official Documentary Section of the 27th Festival de Málaga.

In the short film 'Dos cipreses', Nicolás Martín Ruiz (who presented his first feature film 'Tener tiempo' at the Festival de Málaga in 2022, together with Mario Alejandro Arias and Gabriela Alonso Martínez) compiles the recordings that his father Javier, as a kind of diary, sent him in 2020 during his lockdown. In these home recordings, Nicolás' father detailed his life during a long period of readaptation after a period of addiction.

What began as an alternative to physical encounters made impossible by the pandemic, ended up as a kind of therapy between father and son, separated for years. ‘Using video for me is a way to talk about difficult things. This film has been a therapy for me and a gift for my father', explained Martín Ruiz in the discussion following the screening.
Family dilemmas have also served as a plot for the filmmaker Daniel Tornero in 'Saturno', his first film, with which he is participating in the Festival de Málaga after winning the award for best documentary in development at the Talent Lab of the Atlántida Mallorca Film Fest.

In his feature film, Daniel Tornero tells the story of his rencounter with his grandfather, who is waiting to go to jail after being arrested for child abuse and attempted kidnapping. Meanwhile, his family reunites at his country house and deals with the emotional consequences of growing up under this father figure. ‘The myth of the father itself; the patriarchal family, its lights and shadows. This is what I end up dealing with in my film', explained Daniel Tornero to the spectators who filled the colloquium.

The second day of the Official Documentary section in the Sala de Turismo y  Deporte also counted on Galician directors Paula Fuentes and Guillermo Carrera to present his short documentary 'Corre o vento', a delicate piece about Vilar do Courel, a small village that has been fighting to disappearance for decades as well as its last three inhabitants. With spectacular photography, capturing an almost dark atmosphere, the short film manages to convey the fear felt by its protagonists of losing their beloved village.

‘Guillermo and I knew from the beginning that we wanted to do something about our land and show this resistance to depopulation, especially in Galicia', said the director Paula Fuentes to the audience, who were grateful for her intervention and her bravery in making visible the struggle of so many people in an empty but full of memories Spain. 

The search for the roots of flamenco
Old memories also serve as motivation for Peter Pérez, an 87-year-old man known as Pepi, who embarks on a journey from his home in Vienna to the village of Paterna de Rivera in Andalusia. Accompanied by his best friend, the guitarist Alfred, Pepi sets out on a quest for the most authentic flamenco with the aim of writing his own fandango. This is how the last documentary of the day could be summed up; 'Pepi Fandango'.

Directed by Croatian filmmaker Lucija Stojevic, the film is also the result of her ten-year friendship with the protagonist, a holocaust survivor. ‘I met him making my last film and, as soon as I met him, he played me a fandango CD. He immediately started crying', the director said during the Q&A session. Optimistic and dreamy, Peter René Pérez confessed to the audience that 'it has been very difficult to talk about my life, my childhood. We must not forget that we survivors feel guilty because others have not managed to live'.