The 18th annual Mecal Festival Barcelona (a major international short and animation film festival) will be celebrated from the 10th of March until the 3rd of April, 2016. Mecal is one of the most important film events in Spain. Films by both professionals and amateurs will be featured at this wonderful celebration, attended each year by thousands of film makers, industry professionals, and cinephiles. Last year more than 300 short films were showcased from several different countries. If you are a true movie buff, you should definitely check out Mecal Festival Barcelona 2016!
Each year the Mecal festival showcases short films divided into four different categories: animation, documentaries, oblique, and international. The animation section was only added in 2013, but now includes 6 different programs of national and international short films in various formats, such as theclassic cartoon and stop-motion.
In the documentary section you can expect dramatic works that will allow you to learn about certain aspects of reality far from our ordinary lives. The films featured in the oblique section consist of short films in which creative writing and innovation are reflected, at a narrative and formal level. Lastly, in the international section you can expect films that attempt to illustrate the diversity of plot, aesthetic features and gender in the current worldwide production of the short film format. These four sections belong to the official competition sections, within which filmmakers will compete to win filmawards given out at the festival.
Parallel sections
In addition to the competition sections, Mecal hosts several parallel sections each year. Examples of this year´s parallel sections are Mockumentary, On the Road Again, Horror, Trashanim, Catalan talents, Spanish talents, Womart, Videodance and Session for Children. For folks with a very particular interest and a taste for more experimental (okay, let’s say a bit naughty) films there is also a section named ”golden shower”. If the name hasn´t already given it away, this is the sex section. Need we explain more?
Invited: Croatia
Each year a different country is showcased at the Mecal Barcelona film festival. This year Croatia will be the proud guest country. Even though Croatia is a small country, it still has many amazing films to offer. This year at Mecal you will have the opportunity to see the best Croatian short films, documentaries, and animation films, including Zagreb Film Masterpieces, Marko Mestrovic´s Retrospective, works from Animafest Festival in Zagreb, films by the Academy of Dramatic Arts and two different categories of current films.
There is more!
Besides films, the Mecal Festival 2016 will offer master-classes in scripts by Alfred Perez Farga and Roger Danes, and in transmedia mind by Daniel Resnich. More masterclasses will include one with Marko Mestrovic and Franck Dion. There will also be several animation workshops for film teaches and a programmers´battle.
Photo Credit: mecalbcn.org
