“Every year we want to be more useful in the country”

PuigcerdáThe Cerdanya Film Festival (CFF) is halfway through its 16th edition, a longer edition than usual, since It started on July 29 and will close on August 17."It's something extraordinary that we won't be doing anymore because this is an emergency format," explains Jordi Forcada, the festival's director. "The cinema in Puigcerdà closed, and the City Council said they didn't have the budget to organize activities. I asked them if they hadn't planned anything, how about programming a few more films, and they said yes."

That's why 250 short and feature films have been programmed (last year there were 160) from among the 3,000 films received. "A couple of years ago, we set the goal of being present at international festivals to expand our network of contacts and seek out professionals and projects that might interest us here. Last year, we were in Malaga and Cannes. This year, we've hired Agustí Argelich, who serves on several juries, as our head of international relations and global content." Argelich has directed and produced around twenty fiction, animation, and documentary short films, as well as co-founder, artistic director, and programmer of the Filmets Badalona Film Festival.

In these sixteen editions, the Cerdanya Film Festival has established itself as hub audiovisual sector in Catalonia, northern Catalonia, Andorra, and southern France. "We are the benchmark festival for both parts of Cerdanya, Andorra, and southern France. The CFF is larger than other festivals held in the Girona region. We qualify for the Goya Awards, we are rated in category A, and we receive funding from the Ministry of Culture."

"We can be the great short film festival in Catalonia because there's no one else working in this field; there's only the Filmets [of Badalona] and us, in the professional field. What we want to be is more useful every year. We must be useful to the country because cultural activity alone must be useful, because, if not, what do we do? Exhibit" entertainment, an expense or a luxury," says Forcada. "We are managers of public funds, and therefore we owe it to the people and the culture of the country, through institutions and private initiative." The director of the CFF concludes that "cinematic art in the Pyrenees is quite orphaned, short films in Catalonia don't have great showcases either, and we, at the same time, promote the sector through projects,