15 NOV - 5 DEC 2021
ONSITE & ONLINE

Satellites: Manuel Muñoz Rivas

Parallel

Onsite

This year, three acclaimed Spanish filmmakers whose paths have often crossed with l’Alternativa have accepted our invitation to give a seminar or masterclass and curate a programme of films of their own or by likeminded filmmakers who explore similar creative universes.

Exploring his twin filmmaking facets, director and editor Manuel Muñoz Rivas has programmed three films to compare and contrast the task of directing a film—akin to painting an infinite white canvas—with the meticulous task of editing a finite material. In addition to presenting his own feature El mar nos mira de lejos (2017), which embarks on a journey in search of a lost civilisation as it explores its secret rhythms, he will also present Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990), a docufiction that takes us into the mindset of a cinephile imposter—and which Muñoz Rivas acclaims as a miracle of Iranian filmmaking—and Belovy (Viktor Kossakovsky, 1992), a breathtakingly poetic film that proved to him the power of documentary to capture reality.

Manuel Muñoz Rivas (Sevilla, 1978) graduated from the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. His debut feature, El mar nos mira de lejos, premiered at the Forum section in the 2017 Berlinale and picked up a clutch of awards, including ones at l’Alternativa (Critics Award), Cinespaña, the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival and the Seville European Film Festival. When not directing his own films, he works as a screenwriter and editor on other people’s, including Eles transportan a morte (Samuel Delgado and Helena Girón, 2021), Mbah Jhiwo (Álvaro Gurrea, 2021), Blanco en blanco (Théo Court, 2019), Lonely Rivers (Mauro Herce, 2019), Dead Slow Ahead (Mauro Herce, 2015) and Slimane (José Alayón, 2013).

Manuel Muñoz Rivas will also give the masterclass Two-Way Transformations: Filming as an Urge, Editing as an Exercise in Active Listening.

We interviewed Manuel Muñoz Rivas at the festival.

In collaboration with
AMMAC
AMAE