As part of the celebration of the Festival’s 15th anniversary, D’A is publishing a book. It’s not a critique, a theory, an analysis, or even film footage. It’s all the faces behind the cameras, brought to life by the iconic photographer Óscar Fernández Orengo. The faces of those who have made D’A what it is. And this had to be put on record. To enjoy some excellent portraits, of course; but also to acknowledge that there are many who, day after day, year after year, work, often in silence or silenced, to make independent films in Spain.
It is the Collective Impulse that D’A believes in and that its curator, critic Carlos Losilla, fosters: “What D’A defends is a cinema that is imperfect but dedicated to struggle and combat, that knows nothing but filming and filming, that lives in an extremely weak economy but capable of the greatest waste. Wastes of talent and imagination, of inventiveness that make up for the lack of resources. That is doing politics with images.”
As the Festival’s director, Carlos R. Ríos, reminds us in his introduction, D’A was born in 2011 in a context of severe economic crisis. That panorama and all the creative reactions it precipitated are part of D’A’s DNA. The 146 portraits over 300 pages are also the thousand and one perspectives on a country and an art form permanently in crisis. Under the close gaze of the portraitist and the publication’s neat design, we’ll allow ourselves a moment to smile and pause: these have been years of great joy and great company. An eternal generation.