When icy winds begin to creep through the cracks of Cine Amor, something different pulses in the air: it’s the last time Jorge Sanz will cross the threshold as director of the Aguilar Film Festival.37 edition, December 37 has a city … The little one became a giant thanks to the gentle stubbornness of a man who never wanted to be the protagonist, but ended up becoming one without treatment. He says this with the same naturalness that has always accompanied him. “I will leave quietly because I will leave the festival making noise.”
Like someone leaving a perfect ball in the penalty area so that the next player to arrive can shoot at goal and score a goal, but Jorge doesn’t leave completely – he promises to help at first, and to be there if necessary – even though he knows it’s time to walk away. “You have to know how to leave places with the same affection with which you entered them.” He repeats as he remembers his father’s advice to him, and his voice breaks slightly. It was many years, many adventures and a lot of work behind Jorge that Aguilar de Campo and his entire region were able to make a name for themselves within the Spanish film scene.
This year from November 28 to December 7, the festival returns with the same intensity as always, and perhaps with a deeper heartbeat. Forty short films in the official selection (twenty Spanish films, for the first time half of them directed or co-directed by women); 21 Castilla y León titles will open in the first weekend; Fourteen looks at the rural world in the de Campo section; Laughter in Ríete tú and childlike tenderness in MiniAguilar. The Golden Eagles will go to Luis Zahira, Fernando Caio, Belgian director Olivier Smulders and Valladolid actor Oscar de la Fuente. Names added to the list of impossibilities: Pedro Almodovar, Bardem family, Concha Velasco, Antonio Resines, Maribel Verdo, Alfredo Landa… 70 vultures walked these streets like someone walking home, while greeting neighbors, signing autographs on bar napkins and hugging grandmothers they had seen on television.
Jorge arrived in Aguilar more than four decades ago from Valladolid and the town gave him something that couldn’t be bought: an audience that loved cinema as a person loves life. Here there were two cinemas with daily programs – Amour and Campo – and a cinema club, people breastfeeding in their seats because going to the cinema was as natural as breathing. When what was then called Spanish Film Week was born in 1989, that breeding ground was already on the boil. Jorge remembers him in the trembling voice of someone who conjures old people. “It was like Cinema Paradiso, but in the Valencia version,” he recalls, laughing. “At that time, the children sneaked into the cinema because the owner said they should create a hobby. The mothers came out of mass and bought a ticket for the afternoon session. “Cinema was a ritual, it was a community, it was oxygen,” Jorge admits fondly to Ekal.
That’s where it all came from. He never wanted a festival of posturing or impossible red carpets. He wanted a place where new short filmmakers—the ones who arrived by train with the lab-fresh copy, their backpacks full of nerves and their eyes full of dreams—felt like someone was really watching them. That’s why they made two brave decisions that have marked the DNA of AFF forever: specializing in short films and paying for selection.
“This was our way of telling them: Your work has value, even if you don’t know it yet.” Many of those who fill the billboards of feature films today have passed by here with their “cake” under their arms. The Aguilar Film Festival was his first window, and almost always his first embrace.
This year, as a posthumous gift to someone who loved the festival so much, the Best Spanish Short Film award will be named after Ramón Margarito, the director and artist who was artistic director, jury and friend until he passed away in May. At Cine Amor there will be an exhibition of his paintings and films that run in a loop, because at Aguilar no one leaves completely. Short films will be shown at the Rio Carreon Hospital – two sessions for those who cannot leave their rooms – because Jorge has always believed that culture should reach every corner, especially to those who need it most.
The AFF Classroom will grow to the elementary level After bringing cinema to 4,500 high school students last year. The Hall of Industry will remain that magical place where kids in their early twenties chat face to face with Goya winners like Pelayo Gutierrez or Alberto Valcarcel. After the conclusion, Marwan will sing so that farewell is a life and not an end.
But the real protagonist of this edition will not be on screen. He’ll be behind the scenes, with his tired smile, making sure everything runs one last time like a Swiss watch. Jorge talks about his team as he talks about the children: more than fifty people rowed together when the hotel kitchen burned down, when the cinema pipes burst due to the frost, when the epidemic arrived and they had to be shown on TVs, sports centers and even on TVs in bars. “The word resilience nicely defines everything we have achieved,” he says, his eyes filling with emotion. “Everything has certainly happened to us, but when everyone is paddling in the same direction, there is no storm that can stop us,” he adds.
He leaves quietly, repeats. He is calm because he knows that he will leave the festival in good hands. Quiet because the audience continues to fill the theaters (11 thousand spectators last year), because the directors continue to fight for the future, because the politicians have understood that this is a treasure. Don’t worry the DNA is safe because throughout these years Jorge and his team have achieved the absolute respect of the audience, the closeness of the authors and the pride of being a small festival playing in the adult Champions League. “How great it is for a person to know that he is young,” he says, and he says it without eloquence, as if he were reciting a truth that has saved his life many times.
But without a doubt, when the question is asked what he will miss most about the organisation, preparations and celebration of the festival, he hesitates for a moment and answers with a broken voice. “This is the last hug. “When the festival is over and we’re all hugging each other… it’s all there,” he admits enthusiastically. This year that hug will be different. Longer. More compact. There will be unexplained tears, and some nervous laughter to hide the emotions.
He leaves only one piece of advice for those who come after him, but he says it with the weight of December thirty-seven on his shoulders. «Be honest. Let him take a long look. Don’t rush. “Don’t break the deck.” And to the people he loves so much, just a loving plea. “Never give up on him. Culture is the only thing that provides us with hours of psychotherapy.
Jorge walks away, although a small thorn remains in his memory. He says he doesn’t know how to sell the area better. “I feel a little upset because we didn’t know, we didn’t know why we couldn’t do it,” he says. “Not because we didn’t want to. The fact that the Palentina Mountain area was transformed into a natural photography location. Now they talk a lot about it, but in the early years, since Mar del Luna was filmed here in the fifth edition, we always thought that the whole Aguilar area and its surroundings were a great place to bring filming.”
For Jorge, the natural environment of Aguilar and its area is an authentic natural paradise, ideal places for filming large film productions. “I remember many directors telling me, ‘Look, scenes from Titanic could have been shot in the Aguilar Swamp, or The Lord of the Rings could have been shot in Twists,’” he recalls fondly. “Obviously this seems very far to me, but we have a mining area, and we are really close to Santander or our mountain or Tierra de Campos. Envy scenarios,” he explains to Ekal with emotion.
When the Lights Go Out at Cine Amor on December 7th For the last time under his supervision, Jorge Sanz will gently close the door, like one who closes the eyes of someone he loves very much. It will still be cold outside. Inside will remain the warmth of thirty-seven years of cinema, laughter, hugs, and short films that taught several generations to dream. The memory of the man who never asked for lights, but rather lit up an entire city, will remain.