Being part of the Alba Festival’s 8th edition within this international Nisimazine workshop is to experience passions and bonds, this year’s eXistenZe theme. We share our passion for cinema, which means watching lots of films, discussing them, and writing about them. We constantly construct all kinds of bonds: with different types of touching films, with people from all over the world, and with other cultures. It’s even possible to strengthen our links with our own country and identity, since we’ve become more aware of their meaning to us.

Many of the films in competition at the festival seem to deal with passions and bonds too. Today, for instance, it will be possible to discover the difficulties in achieving integration between different cultures in Nulle Part, Terre Promise, love that brings pain in Better Things, father-daughter ties in No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti, and the blossoming of a new friendship in Mubobi. The eXistenZe category itself offers a tale of conflicting brothers in Force of Evil, and a love triangle in La maman et la putain. The event of the day also relates to the overarching theme of the festival: Marco Ponti will talk about links between writing for cinema through images and the invention of beauty.

The general presence of this theme in the festival points at a new research into universal feelings and relationships. Hopefully, these films and masterclasses will transmit the same impression to the public.

Martha Lopes