Metrópolis…

it is a time machine, a trip to the past that leads us to other future, apocalyptic, postmodern and decadent worlds.

…it is an enormous city, with stifling and intriguing areas, where massive skyscrapers with New York art deco references are placed across motorways suspended in the airflow.

… it is a story of class struggle and intense ideological contradictions, which takes place in a controversial period, Germany of the 20s, and it has tremendous social imbalances.

…it is more than a marvelous science fiction film, since it provides the iconographic basis of the genre, being pioneer and revolutionary in the way of using the special effects, the photography, the sets…

Metrópolis (1927) by Fritz Lang is, overall, a cinema masterpiece and one of the biggest representatives of German expressionism. It is the first film in history to be awarded as UNESCO Audiovisual World Heritage.

It is even prouder for us to show its last restoration with unpublished retrieved images, and a perfect excuse to give a substantial turnaround to our programme with an absolute commitment to the thematic cinema without limits: films about any topic, anywhere in the world, for any person and any place in our close environment.

It is also true that the economic situation of the last years has forced us to make many changes, some of them very positive, like the ones we mentioned before, and others less so because we have lost the most glamorous part that all festival need: promotions, ceremonies, professional visits…. Films and audiovisual works, as well as a first-class way of artistic expression, are a very important industrial sector for society and festivals are aware of it. I wish we could reverse this situation at some point. In the meanwhile, we will continue betting on the good cinema.

Thanks for still trusting MI RETINA ME ENGAÑA,

Happy 15th Edition 2017