As the sixth edition of Majordocs approaches from 1 to October 5 in Palma, Spain, Festival Director Miguel Eek delves into this year’s multifaceted program. Featuring an official selection of eight films from six countries, including Chile, Palestine, and Hungary, and inaugurating a new segment dedicated to Balearic short films, Majordocs continues to expand its regional and international cinematic reach. This year’s focus on cinematography highlights the essential role of photography direction and the film apparatus in documentary creation. Initiatives like EDUCA and COMUNIDADES engage audiences through educational screenings and dialogues.
There is a focus on cinematography and the directors of photography who provide the look of films at this year’s Majordocs. Why was this chosen as the 2024 focus?
The focus of each year strictly affects professional activities. In previous years, we addressed home cinema or editing as writing. In 2024, we want to explore the relationship between those who film and those who are filmed. This is why we have invited Mauro Herce, one of the most international Spanish DoPs, to explain his strategies, conversations, and decisions when approaching a non-fiction film. We will also have a docsession in collaboration with Crew United, where cinematographers Lara Vilanova and Jessica Sarah Rinland discuss the right distance between camera and people and the relationship between filmmaker and cinematographer.
In 2024, we want to explore the relationship between those who film and those who are filmed.
A competition dedicated to Balearic short films reflecting local talent will be introduced this year. How did the mentorship program with MajorDocs help shape these films?
We are very pleased to launch this section because it reflects our region’s growing interest in documentaries. Unfortunately, documentary film training in the Balearic Islands is almost nonexistent, and there are some misunderstandings about what documentary film is. That is why we decided to create the mentoring program as a laboratory for young filmmakers, allowing them to make their first short documentary. It has been a challenge for them to describe «the documentary gesture» and the incorporation of the unexpected in their films, as well as to develop the subjective potential of their own gaze. We are happy with the result of this first edition, although we know there is still a long way to go.
How do you design the EDUCA and COMUNIDADES initiatives to educate young people and cultivate a deeper appreciation for documentary film as an art form?
EDUCA & COMUNIDADES are two of the festival’s cross-cutting programs. EDUCA’s aim is, first of all, to train secondary school teachers on the potential that documentary film has in schools. We want to transcend an obsolete idea of documentary as a transmitter of knowledge. That is why we work with pedagogues and filmmakers to reclaim cinema as a language to build students’ identity, develop their empathy, and stimulate their critical, ethical, aesthetic and artistic outlook. After training teachers and creating educational itineraries, the key moment is to bring young people to the cinema. For many of them, it is the first time they have seen a documentary in a theatre, and we are used to witnessing catharsis in which students can break down barriers of fear and talk about issues previously silenced in the classroom.
COMUNITIES is Majordocs’ sociocultural program and aims to bring documentary film closer to groups that have been marginalised from culture and art for economic, social or educational reasons. Through a network of organisations, hundreds of people have the opportunity to maintain a dialogue not only in the Q&A with the filmmakers but also in a social, recreational space set up for this purpose.
COMUNITIES is Majordocs’ sociocultural program and aims to bring documentary film closer to groups that have been marginalised from culture and art for economic, social or educational reasons.
The new CalmaDocs residency is an interesting addition to this year’s festival. Can you elaborate on the goals of this program?
CALMADOCS is a creative residency for Spanish-speaking filmmakers that we revived from previous years but were unable to repeat last year due to budget constraints. Mallorca is known as the island of calm, and we want to vindicate calm and tranquillity as an essential element of creation.
The residency lasts a week in a country house in Mallorca, tutored by filmmaker and editor Diana Toucedo. This year, we have six residents with wonderful feature film projects. These projects will be presented in an atypical pitch. Here, the milestone is not to get new financiers but a creative return from other filmmakers and a dozen national and international festival directors and programmers.
MajorDocs emphasises «alternative realities and viewpoints» through its curated selection. How do you define an «alternative viewpoint» in documentary filmmaking?
Having a manifesto has helped us to guide ourselves through the complexities of programming just eight feature films out of the hundreds of films that reach us each year. The author’s point of view and proposal are two key elements when choosing a film. This alternative view can be born from the boldness of the author’s proposal and the authenticity of his point of view, and we find that in the gestures of the first films. It is no coincidence that half of the programming is debut films this year. There is also something that seems important to us, and that is to pay attention to those films that are born and built far from the power structures, from the most independent authors and producers, from a radical gesture that does not understand fashions, as well as films that come from the rural and not just from the cities.
