The sun bathes the courtyard of the Estudi General Lul-lià on an ordinary September morning. Miguel Eek, sitting at one of the tables in the cafeteria, tries to define a festival that is peculiar in its proposal, but that seems essential in this volatile context we are in. MajorDocs is a documentary film festival in Mallorca that is based on three pillars: the authors, the slowness -providing a cinema experience without counterprogramming where you can watch films outdoors and talk about the films while having a close relationship with the authors and, finally, the authors themselves, placing the authors at the very center, not focusing on the most industrial and economic part of filmmaking, but more based on the relationships that are developed between the authors and their films'.
He responds to the challenge with ease, but meditatively. His tone of voice is slow and reflective, like the concept he promoted six years ago with four other colleagues and of which he is creative director. Today, while he is finalizing the details at the place where the meetings with the directors will be held during the first week of October, he recalls those beginnings and their initial purpose, which was none other than to offer a close experience that would open the doors to debate, to more depth and to the concerns we all share. And so is MajorDocs, a festival that bets on 'slowing down and reflection' through a genre that we tend to associate with information, travel or animals, but that, in reality, goes much further. 'It is a subjective cinema where the authors' view prevails as well as emotion to information'.
For four days, Major Docs screens two films a day at Cine Ciutat. There is no rush or eagerness to accumulate viewings. The objective is, according to one of its promoters, 'to create spaces for the films and the reasons why they have been created to reach us'. The selection, for this purpose, is curated. They are risky films that 'go beyond temporality, do not describe the reality of the moment', but put their finger on the sore spot, 'seek to shake us, make us convulse and take us straight out of our comfort zone'.
"The important thing is to share concerns in an expansive dialogue beyond the screening".
MajorDocs' proposal is to desaturate the view,' says Eek, aware that the format defies the times of frenetic - and often superficial - consumption of information. It's different here. This festival is not about 'accumulating data and information and thoughts, but about opening ourselves to an artistic experience that goes right through us and leaves us with an aftertaste. That's why it's important to give it a good amount of space, so that the films leave that aftertaste, and that's literally possible because they are all films that raise many more questions than answers'.
With a proposal suitable only for those who are willing to poke their heads into the abyss of uncertainty, MajorDocs remains faithful to its manifesto, which vindicates innovation and adventure, and the ability to transcend current events; which extols art over the transmission of knowledge, delves, slowly, into complexity; which does not leave the viewer indifferent and focuses on the author's view. A unique look.
His humanistic philosophy lays the foundation, but what happens is what turns theory into something tangible. 'The important thing is to share concerns in an expansive dialogue beyond projection'. How is this achieved? By breaking down the barriers between author and audience, breaking down the gap between film and spectator, and building a climate of familiarity. This is not a place for red carpets and tuxedos. Here films are screened and then the debate continues in the bars of the Ciutat and in the courtyard of the Lul-lià.
"What matters are the actual views, more than the themes themselves".
In this edition -previous editions can be seen on Filmin- promoted by Mosaic and El Obrador, photography in cinema is the focus, from a vision that focuses on 'the relationship established between the one who films and the one who is filmed, in an honest, non-intrusive, ethical way', explains Miguel Eek, who stresses that in the backbone of the festival, 'what matters are the actual views, more than the themes themselves'. Surely for this reason the proposal is selective and in each film there is a story that seeks to expand our way of seeing, understanding and sharing cinema through stories that leave no one indifferent.
But MajorDocs goes beyond that. Calma Docs, one of its branches, is a creative residency that, faithful to this philosophy that professes slowness, invites five non-fiction authors from Spain to live for a week in Mallorca in a country house and share their creative processes. The master classes do the rest and 'expand the views to another way of understanding cinema'.
Like all rara avis, the documentary film festival has gone through its own journey. 'It was already born with great difficulties, such as funding or the pandemic, so as a festival it must be open to improvisation. There is a very monitored part, very thought out, and also a very uncertain one. We have been thinking for a year what these five days would be like, but there is always a part in which chance will make each edition quite different'.
Their aspirations are honest. They don't want, says Miguel, 'to grow much more and become something big and monstrous, and move away from intimacy and interaction because this is, perhaps, the key part', so they focus on questioning the viewer in films that on this occasion are expected to be 'quite hard' but that reach a 'very loyal audience that responds well to the proposal'. However, there are still challenges to take on, such as reaching people who are still unfamiliar with the festival, those who have never been to a movie theater to see a documentary or educate the eyes of young people.
Sustainability is also an inherent pillar of MajorDocs. After all, it is a small festival in which mobility between events is on foot; trips between the cinema and the airport, by electric car; a lot of work is done outdoors, reusable bottles are distributed to avoid waste and a network of zero kilometer food suppliers is established to minimize the ecological impact.
Between financial uncertainty and the desire to bring us stories that stir our stomachs, MajorDocs consolidates its path while inviting us to see, feel and share cinema together 'at a time of noise, distraction and haste' in which 'the movie theater guarantees attention'. An objective that will certainly be achieved from October 1 to 5. Discover its program here and, above all, open your eyes.
