The Brain Film Fest will celebrate its seventh edition between On March 13 and 17 at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and with the ages of the brain as the guiding theme. Promoted by the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and co-organised with Minimal Films, in collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation, the first European festival dedicated to the brain will screen eight feature films and twenty-two short films this year in its two competitive sections, and another nine films in parallel screenings. In addition, it will feature the usual round tables, workshops, presentations and case studies that accompany the cinematic experience.

“Our brain evolves and transforms from the day we are born,” recalls Cristina Maragall, president of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. “Science today allows us to know much more about what it is like at each stage of our life, and cinema is proof of this. When the topic of the different ages of the brain is so present on our screens, we know that we must explore it at the BrainFilm Fest.”

The importance of remembering

The festival will open with the screening of Infinite memory, by Maite Alberdi, nominated for an Oscar for “Best Documentary.” The director will also be the subject of a retrospective of her work. The Chilean filmmaker will also receive the Brain Film Fest 2024 Special Award recognizing a cinematographic career that has often explored old age and themes related to the brain with a lucid and empathetic gaze. The Alzheimer's that Augusto Góngora suffers from, the protagonist of the inspiring and luminous love story he lives with Paulina Urrutia in La memoria infinita, is also the theme that drives other films that can be enjoyed at the Brain Film Fest. One of them, As long as you are you, the here and now of Carme Elías, The recent winner of the Goya and Gaudí awards, is part of the Official Section and will be screened in a session to benefit Alzheimer's research. It was within the framework of the Brain Film Fest where Carme Elías made public her diagnosis.

The documentary also talks about Alzheimer's A lifetime, by Marta Romero, a love letter to his grandparents that can be seen in the Schools Section, dedicated to the teenage public and that will also offer The Life of Brianeitor, by Álvaro Longoria, who will present the film virtually accompanied by the film's protagonist, a generational phenomenon in the world of gamers and streamers thanks to the hundreds of thousands of followers his Twitch channel has. Brianeitor suffers from degenerative muscular atrophy and is a role model for young people as a model of self-improvement and willpower.

The festival has scheduled a special session of the masterpiece Charles Chaplin The Kid (The Kid), intended for people with Alzheimer's. And within the framework of the festival the Inner Ashes video game, whose protagonist suffers from the same disease, and the public will be invited to try it.

When cinema takes you to the limit

One of the highlights of the programme of activities organised by the Brain Film Fest this year is the case study on the emotional management of actors in The Snow Society. The Theatre Hall of the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) will be the stage, next March 15th, an event in which the intense process of preparation, filming and subsequent emotional evolution of the film's actors will be discussed, amidst adverse conditions and situations that pushed them to the limit. A session that will be led by Maria Laura Berch, casting director and acting coach for the film JA Bayonne, and in which one of its protagonists will participate, Santiago Vaca Narvaja.

Among the activities also stand out: round tables on the application of artificial intelligence to human well-being, adolescence, ageism and the prejudices and stereotypes it causes, or the relationship between biological gender and brain aging.

Emotions, mental health and artificial intelligence

If Infinite Memory will open the Brain Film Fest 2024, the closing will come with the premiere of The Longest Goodbye, documentary of Ido Mizrahy which closely examines the mental health challenges experienced by astronauts during their missions to Mars and the role played by NASA psychologists. Emotional management is also the central theme of Love Gloria, the film of Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq and one of the strong titles of an Official Competitive Section that also includes three prestigious Spanish films that reflect on gender and age: Creature, by Elena Martin Gimeno, and 20,000 species of bees, by Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren (both winners of the Gaudí for Best Film), and Mamacruz, by Patricia Ortega, with which Kiti Manver has won the Carmen and ASECAN awards.

Also participating in the Official Section are two feature films that talk about mental health: in the Austrian Club Zero, the director Jessica Hausner presents a disturbing thriller about nutritional sects that cause eating disorders to their followers. And the Dutch-British co-production Silver Haze, by Sacha Polak, uses the tools of social cinema to reflect the experience of a young victim of a fire. The competitive section of feature films is completed with Mars Express, by Jérémie Perín, a César-nominated French animated production that raises a handful of questions about our relationship with artificial intelligence.

Big and short stories

Some of the themes that form the backbone of the feature film programme are also part of the twenty short films in competition at this year's Brain Film Fest. Alzheimer's is discussed, for example, by Paris 70, the most awarded Spanish short film of last year with more than sixty awards. And mental health is the vehicle for short films such as Stigma or DiaphonyThe programme also addresses reflections on grief, trauma, other illnesses and personality disorders.

Juries

Both competitive sections will have their respective juries. The actor and theatre director Josep Maria Pou, the journalist Samantha Villar, Imma Aguilar (director of FECYT, Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) and Gloria Oliver (manager of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation) form the jury of the Official Feature Film Section. The short films, for their part, will be evaluated by a second jury formed by the artistic director of Filmets de Badalona, ​​​​Augusti Argelich; Carla Rubio, presenter of the 3Cat program You are a motivated person, dedicated to mental health; and Eduard Vallory, director of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and president of CATESCO.

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