Un Chien Andalou the short surrealist film created by Salvador Dalí and Luis Bunuel, inaugurated the Cadaqués Shortfilm Festival that took place June 15th – 17th this year.
The annual festival is the result of a partnership between the Council of Cadaqués, Spain, and the Cultural Association Ibizacinefest from Ibiza.
The city of Cadaques, known worldwide as ‘Dalí’s birthplace’ ( more specifically, Dalí was born and lived in Port LLigat a few kilometers from the city center…) is certainly the ideal location for the surrealist film festival.
Filmmakers enter their short films in various sections, including best Fiction Short, best Documentary Short: best Experimental Short and best Surrealist short..
The festival opened with a screening of the 1929 surrealist film Un Chien Andalou. The film, only seventeen minutes long; is a surreal and mysterious series of scenes, loosely connected, full of bizarre imagery. The pivotal scene is when a woman’s eye is apparently sliced open. Shocking, weird and wonderful, the film is almost ninety years old yet remains an iconic piece of surreal cinema created during the height of the Surrealist movement that took place in Paris during the 1920s.
The festival closed with awards for various independent film makers including Aamir, by Russian director Vika Evdokimenko. The film was also nominated for the BAFTA 2018 Best British Short Film award.
The Surrealist Film prize was won by Russian director Mel Hsieh, with his short film ‘ Dream Hatcher’, an experimental black and white short film about the interpretation of ‘dream hatching’ and the symbolism of captivity and entrapment.
