New Madrid

HD/ 10 min / B&N + color / 2016

Ayuda a la creación en videoarte Fundación BBVA

Sinopsis

New Madrid is an essay about failed utopia result of a trip to the eight towns called Madrid in United States.

Festivals

2016 – Curtocircuito. Sección Oficial

2016 – Sitges Festival Cinema Fantástico de Cataluña. Sección Novas Visions

2016 – Alcine. Festival Internacional de cine de Alcalá de Henares

2016 – Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo. Sección Resistencias

2016 – L’Alternativa. Sección Panorama

2016 – Zinebi 2016. Sección oficial

2017 – D’A Cinema de Autor de Barcelona. Sección Un impulso colectivo

2017 – Festival Internacional de Cine de Las Palmas

2017 – L.A OLA Spanish Film Festival , Los Angeles.

2017 – Anthology Film Archives, Nueva York. Estados Unidos

2017 – Festi Freak. Oficial Section. Mar de Plata. Argentina

2017 – Seoul International New Media. Corea del Sur

2018 – Blue Art Foundation, Barcelona

Exhibitions

2016 – MULTIVERSO. Fundación BBVA

2017 –La Pared. Tabakalera – Centro Internacional de Cultura Contemporánea de San Sebastián

2018 – Galería Solar, Vila do Conde

TRAILER

DP: Nacho Montero

Sound: Josep Vilagut

After Effects: Manuel Eslava

Poster Design: Silvia Grav

Statement

“New Madrid” is the result of a research. I have been studying, filming an travelling during the past two years on the same topic: copycat cities and failed utopias. In particular this shortfilm talks about eight towns built in another country with the same name of my city. The eight towns failed for several and different reasons in the past so nowadays there aren’t prosperous places or even they don’t exist anymore. I tried to make a reflection about the “doomed copy” which is a theme that traditionally belongs to literature but it can be applicable to other disciplines. I tried to make a link between this failure and the current urban model.

Texts

The discovery of the American cities baptized with the name of the capital of Spain, induced Natalia Marín to elaborate an audiovisual essay on the multiple failure of the game: that of man, that of society, that of the idea of utopia. .. His piece, concise and lucid, reflect on concepts such as copy and simulation to conclude that the repetition of urban models, without addressing other considerations (orographic, climatic, economic …), only lead to catastrophe.

The passage from negative images to virtual simulation, the voice-over that paraphrases Pérec, Lefebvre, Mumford, Calvino and, above all, Baudrillard, and the use of red at a specific moment, make up a solid discourse on the defeat of the human being as self-styled demiurge and, at the same time, transfer that idea of failure to the original city.

Enric Albero. Caimán Cuadernos de Cine

Best Shortfilms 2016