JOURNEYS TO THE IMPOSSIBLE (IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A FILM, FIRST YOU HAVE TO CLIMB A MOUNTAIN). Film course

For every film that comes into being, there are many more that are relegated to the limbo of the unfilmed. The latter are the only perfect films, because they exist only as a potential, as an idea or a dream, and have never clashed with reality. In contrast, the ones that have materialised will always and necessarily be imperfect, a catalogue of promises and resignations and, maybe, of some happy encounters. ‘Anything is possible if it is foolish enough,’ said Orson Welles, but as he would discover himself, such optimism was no more than the stubborn wish of a non-conformist rebel.

Every film we get to see is, therefore, a small miracle, a fragment ripped out of darkness, out of nothing, out of the impossible. Because the beauty of cinema may precisely lie in its improbability and perishability, in the miraculous condition of its technological machinery that, as such, will always be at the mercy of imperfections, abnormalities, defects or errors. Inside every film nestles the possibility of ‘not being,’ and the history of cinema will always be a negotiation between the visible and the invisible, between its possible films—namely, those were shot and are still preserved—and the impossible ones, those that have never been filmed and are lost for ever.

As a result, one of the most moving possible cinema storie —to which this course is dedicated—belongs to the melancholic creators who, as Walter Benjamin said of Kafka, court ‘the purity and beauty of a failure,’ who want everything to then, at times, go nowhere, who accept chance as just another trigger for their stories, moving forward despite mishaps, never giving up on their search for their long-lost north star. Creators who, in a nutshell, take a journey to the impossible to find the possible.

PROGRAMME

7 OCTOBER
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982) and Conquest of the Useless (Werner Herzog, 2004)

14 OCTOBER
Othello (Orson Welles, 1948-1952) and Filming Othello (Orson Welles, 1978)

21 OCTOBER
This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi, 2011)

28 OCTOBER
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) and Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola, 1991)

4 NOVEMBER
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)

18 NOVEMBER
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008)

25 NOVEMBER
The Green Ray (Éric Rohmer, 1986) and The Green Ray (Tacita Dean, 2001)

2 DECEMBER
José Val del Omar, to invent to film (Elementary Tryptic of Spain, 1955-1982)

9 DECEMBER
Zama (Lucrecia Martel, 2017) and El mono en el remolino. Notes on Zama (Selva Almada, 2017)

16 DECEMBER
Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)

JOSÉ MANUEL LÓPEZ (Vigo, 1974). Critic, educator and film programmer, he is presently writing his dissertation titled ‘Centauros de la ciudad. Vagabundeos terminales por la metrópolis y el cine contemporáneos’ and works as a Screenwriting professor at the Pontevedra Faculty of Communication. Since 2012 he has been teaching cinema courses at Vigo's Museum of Contemporary Art (Marco) and at the Santiago's Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC). He has also delivered conferences at centres such as Máster LAV, ESCAC, CGAI, Seminci, Festival de Málaga or Centro de las Artes de Sevilla.
He founded the cinema journal Tren de sombras (2004-2008) and from 2007 to 2017, he was a member of the editorial staff for Caimán Cuadernos de Cine (previously known as Cahiers du Cinéma: España). In 2008 he coordinated the book Naomi Kawase. El cine en el umbral for the Festival de Cine de Las Palmas. He has participated in collective works such as La risa oblicua. Tangentes, paralelismos e intersecciones entre documental y humor; Las edades de Apu. Estudios sobre la trilogía de Satyajit Ray, or Paul Schrader. El cineasta frente a los tiempos, among others. He has also collaborated in a variety of cinema journals and as dialogue writer for the Galician television (TVG) series Matalobos.
In 2015 he curated the cinema series O centro non pode resistir. Descentramentos da figura na paisaxe urbana to accompany the exhibit Valérie Jouve. Corps en résistance at Fundación Luís Seoane of A Coruña; in 2017 he curated the shorts program Sonic Lux for Curtocircuito - Festival Internacional de Cine de Santiago de Compostela; and in 2018 he curated New Spain, an exhibit of Spanish artists and filmmakers for Solar - Galeria de Arte Cinemática and Curtas - Festival de Vila do Conde (Portugal).

TARGET GROUP

Teachers, students and cinema enthusiasts.

REGISTRATION

The registration period is from 1 July to 6 October 2020. Anybody interested can send an email to cgac.educacion@xunta.gal. You must include your full name, ID number, area of work or interest, an email address and a contact phone number. Once the request has been accepted, those registered will be informed of the payment method.
Depending on the health situation at the time of the course, it will be in-person or online.

CERTIFICATION

The CGAC will give a certificate to all people who attend a minimum of 75% of the sessions.