The Diplomat
The twelfth edition of Todo Cine Todo Dominicana 2023 came to a close on Sunday 24 September at the Sala Azcona of the Cineteca de Madrid, where Dominicans, Spaniards and other nationalities, as well as experts and film lovers, enjoyed the film El Blanco, by director Alejandro Andújar.
From 19 September, those attending the festival enjoyed the best Dominican film productions of recent years: Diáspora, by director Héctor Manuel Valdez; La vida de los Reyes, by Frank Perozo; Consuelo, by Fernando Santos and Gabriel Valencia; Lo que se hereda, by Victoria Linares Villegas; Bantú mama, a film selected to represent the Dominican Republic at the 2023 Oscars, directed by Iván Herrera; Perejil, by José María Cabral; El país de las últimas cosas, by Alejandro Chomski, and El Blanco, by Alejandro Andújar. The screenings were followed by colloquiums where the audience had the opportunity to interact with the directors of the films, in a space where visions and experiences were exchanged.
The opening ceremony, held on Tuesday 19 September in the Sala Azcona at the Cineteca, included the screening of the documentary Diáspora, by Héctor Manuel Valdez. On Wednesday 20 September, directors Fernando Santos, Gabriel Valencia and Héctor Manuel Valdez held a meeting with film students from the Transforming Arts Institute (TAI), where they exchanged knowledge and visions from a contemporary perspective on Dominican cinema.
On Thursday 21 September, in the morning hours and in the presence of the ambassador of the Dominican Republic, Juan Bolívar Díaz, and Marianna Vargas Gurilieva, director of the DGCINE, a discussion took place in the Ambassadors’ Lounge of Casa de América on the Collective Imaginary of Dominican cinema: beyond storytelling, with the participation of the directors and producers invited to the exhibition, moderated by Manuel Martín, director of the Ibero-American Film Festival of Huelva. The event was led by Enrique Ojeda Vila, director of Casa de América.
This exhibition is part of the commitment of this diplomatic mission to disseminate Dominican art and culture in Spain, especially Dominican cinema, which continues to grow vertiginously in terms of the quality of the films and productions that are made there. Todo Cine Todo Dominicana 2023 has been organised by the Embassy of the Dominican Republic, the Directorate General of Cinema (DGCINE) and the Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic (MITUR) in collaboration with CINETECA, Casa de América and the Centro Cultural José de Espronceda.
