The second edition of the LA GRAN Pantalla film festival concludes with 10,000 viewers

The La GRAN Pantalla film festival concluded its second edition on Friday, 17 July, held this year in online format through the Filmin platform. This time the Barcelona International Film Festival for the Elderly opted for an extraordinary virtual edition because of the Covid-19 global crisis and drew in almost five times the number of views it had in the previous edition. Some 10,000 people were able to enjoy this festival which, a year on since its first edition, has become an inter-generational meeting point that debunks prejudices and stereotypes relating to the elderly.

 The festival presented a programme adapted to the new situation, keeping its usual sections and activities in an edition that brought the La GRAN Pantalla to the entire Spanish State and thereby expanded and diversified its audience. As for the participatory activities of the two Gran Pantalla debates and the three Cineforums, these were also very well received, showing that new technologies can create the necessary meeting places and that films can become a point for dialogue and debate for elderly people.

The La GRAN Pantalla officially opened at the Cinemes Girona this 6 July, taking part in which was the Councillor for Children, Youth, Elderly People and People with a Disability, Joan R. Riera, who gave a very positive assessment of the high participation seen in the festival as it demonstrated that it was “possible to carry out useful projects that help to combat the loneliness of elderly people and, moreover, when the current health situation will not allow recreational and leisure spaces to open to the public. That’s why the fight against loneliness is a strategy that Barcelona City Council is putting all its energy in”.

La GRAN Pantalla 2020 new developments

The star attraction at this second edition was the female perspective. Four of the six feature films shown were directed by women and elderly women were the stars of the programme, with the festival becoming an invitation to discover or rediscover this generation of women and the key role they have played over the last decades.

The Barcelona International Film Festival for the Elderly’s jury underscored the high level and diversity of the official selection of short films and their refreshing narratives. Here the jury expressed their view that the short films featuring in the programme took us to the world of elderly people closest to us, from several aspects: everyday, participatory, dynamic, financial, cultural, love-life, conflictive etc., with the aim of offering a positive view of the various situations, through several stories, genres, cultures and social classes.

The prize for the Gran Pantalla 2020 Best International Short Film went to the Danish film, Between a Rock and a hard place, by Mads Kouda, a drama on the end of a household relationship between an octagenarian mother and her adult child with Down’s syndrome. The La GRAN pantalla 2020 Special Mention went to Barê Giran, by the Kurdish director Yılmaz Özdil, a story of overcoming, strength and persistence between Turkey and Syria. Lastly, the Public Prize went to the film Manolo Montesco y María Capuleto, by Maria Jáimez, a wonderful documentary on her grandparents which offers an entertaining analogy between the story of Romeo and Juliet and her parents’ story.

La GRAN Pantalla 2020

La GRAN Pantalla is an elParlante project provided with financial and organisational support by Barcelona City Council. The festival collaborated with several old people’s associations, including ACRA, Amics de la Gent Gran and the Viure i Conviure programme launched by the Roure Foundation and Barcelona City Council. It made the most of the elParlante network, which has been working with elderly people for 6 years, preparing participatory videos.