From Thursday, October 27 to Sunday, November 6, Barcelona hosts the 20th edition of In-Edit, the most important national festival ---and one of the heavyweights on the international scene--- dedicated to documentary cinema focused on music, becoming one of the city's major autumn events.
Along with Primavera Sound and Sónar, which also originated in post-Olympic Barcelona that wanted to stay on the map, In-Edit is one of the few cultural agents in the city that has been internationalizing and promoting national proposals for many years. Only, in the case of this festival, it is not the audience that comes, but the festival that travels.
On the occasion of its birthday, the founder and director of In-Edit, Uri Altell, looks back and reviews the origins and most notable episodes of a festival that has taken the Barcelona brand to cities like Madrid and Hondarribia, but also to countries like Greece, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Chile.
--- Let's start by looking back. How did In-Edit begin?
--- Back in 2000, before platforms existed, most documentaries shown on TV were those on channel 2, about animals, and people watched them to take a nap. I would get together with four friends to watch other types of documentaries and we had the crazy idea of watching them on a big screen.
--- How did you come to think of organizing a festival?
--- We were lucky to start with an event for a well-known gin brand, which was our sponsor for many years. We did it at the City Hall, where we screened a music documentary, and the managers proposed that we maintain a program for Fridays. But I was going through a therapeutic process and the last thing I needed was to be in a club, in addition to the costs it could entail in terms of performance. So, the thing translated into condensing a year's programming into ten days. I had calculated about 50 documentaries, as many as feasible weeks, which is the same formula we have maintained ever since. And that's how In-Edit was born, which, moreover, we sought to celebrate in weeks when there were no other important events in the city.
--- Surely there are many, but tell us about a memorable moment in the history of In-Edit.
--- The festival has been a reflection of what has happened in Barcelona in these 20 years. From those first editions with screenings like No Direction Home by Martin Scorsese or The Devil and Daniel Johnston by Jeff Feuerzeig, which marked many people who were not the usual In-Edit attendees, everything has happened. The year of the loss of Alberto Pascual, father of the festival like me, many things happened, such as we were lucky enough to have the great Bebo Valdés. Those were two extreme moments. Then we expanded internationally without stopping growing; the queues for the screenings have continued to repeat; and we also had a before and after on our tenth anniversary, with the screening of Searching for Sugar Man by Malik Bendjelloul and everything that happened afterwards, until its award at the Oscars. The truth is that there are many moments and it is difficult to name them all.
--- The film and music industry has also transformed a lot during this time, and the way we consume culture has taken a leap, especially with the emergence of streaming platforms.
--- We valued the possibility of offering video on demand to our audience. First, through the Filmin platform and, then, we created In-Edit TV, where not only the documentaries we screen during the festival can be viewed, but also some of the most voted by the public. With the number of titles we screen, it is impossible to see them all during the event and we want to give that extra also to those who cannot attend the festival because, for example, they are out of the city.
--- But, have you noticed these changes in viewer habits?
--- During the year, people have us very low on their list of things to watch, since they will first watch a series or a program they have pending on platforms. But, when the festival dates arrive, we have a loyal audience that wants to see those musical documentaries that we propose, on the big screen. Not so much as a fan phenomenon, looking for the star, but also as a discovery, whether of a sound, some bands, a style, or the most intimate face of some character from the music scene. Our motto remains "human stories above the importance of musicians".
--- It is true that you have an audience that never fails.
--- The musical spectrum we cover is so large that, in some way, it also makes our audience very diverse and, therefore, we can reach more people who, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other.
"During the year, people have us very low on their list of things to see. But, when the festival dates arrive, we have a loyal audience"--- How many spectators do you expect to register in this edition, post-coronavirus and celebratory?
--- We expect about 40,000 people, a figure that represents a 30% increase compared to 2018, which was a great year. And that's considering we were about 400 people in the first edition!
--- From 400 to 40,000 attendees and 20 years in activity, with COVID in between. What do you think has been the key to In-Edit's success?
--- The festival has a discovery component, but it is also a social event. Because you meet up with your friends, not only to watch the documentaries, but also to have a drink or attend some of the parallel events --- such as concerts, talks or parties --- and we haven't lost that, quite the opposite. It is one of Barcelona's autumn festivals and the luck of having so many involved collaborators, both national and international, means we can offer our audience unparalleled quality and variety. It is also a meeting point for the music industry.
"The festival has a discovery component, but it is also a social event"--- Let's go with the 2022 edition. What do you recommend?
--- A special highlight, hand in hand with Moritz, will include classics that harken back to memorable festival screenings or that endure as milestones of the genre, such as Anvil: The Story Of Anvil, Dig!, Jazz on a Summer's Day, Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America, Summer of Soul, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and The Punk Singer. We will continue to have the Official Section, from which I recommend El káiser de la Atlántida and No callarem. In International Panorama, there will be essentials like Omara and Sinéad O'Connor: Nothing Compares. I don't want to miss naming the three winners of the In-Edit Awards from Greece, Brazil, and Chile, Broken Sound, Manguebit, and Violeta Existe, respectively, as well as the short film section, which is also going to be very good.
--- What future do you want for the festival? 20 more years?
--- Hopefully 20 more, yes! We are going to continue with internationalization and expanding. And taking advantage of the synergies we have already achieved, propose other festivals, also of documentaries, but this time about fashion and towards spring. And powerful new projects that I cannot explain yet...