This activity is funded by the Department of Equality of Alcalá de Henares City Council through funds received from the Ministry of Equality, via the State Secretariat for Equality and the Eradication of Violence against Women, for the implementation of the State Pact against Gender-Based Violence.
Curated by Colectivo Alterno.
Movement and the origins of animation are the two themes shaping ALCINE 55's conceptual world. This new edition of the festival is on the move, and not just through its short films. Sound is a powerful companion to animation: it guides us in different directions, moves us and conveys intention. Otherwise, how would we sense a moment of tension or calm? How would we connect with what the characters are experiencing?
The relationship between music and cinema comes to life at ALCINE through Short Music, the festival's music section, which brings together three short concerts in a unique venue, the Corral de Comedias. For the second year running, we at Colectivo Alterno have the pleasure of curating this section, presenting a programme that takes its inspiration from early experiments preceding cinema. We turn our attention to this prehistoric cinematic world, a formative period that saw the emergence of philosophical toys: devices used to experiment with and investigate movement and optical illusions.
For Colectivo Alterno, which curates Short Music, it was important that all three artistic projects followed this thread and shared a curiosity for using sound to reach unfamiliar places. ALCINE proposed Truenos futuristas by Paco Alcázar, and the collective completed the line-up with Damoridemort and Umbráfono. As with philosophical toys, experimentation is the driving force behind these artists' creative work.
Paco Alcázar is an established illustrator who, on this occasion, presents Truenos futuristas, a piece created exclusively for ALCINE 55. Paco revisits cinema classics, reworking and accompanying them with music he mixes himself. He is a multidisciplinary artist whose work engages with cinema, forging fascinating connections between music and film.
Damoridemort is an enigmatic Catalan-Brazilian avant-pop and experimental music duo formed by artists Blanc Nua and Erika Michi. Their genre-defying approach combines interwoven vocals, synthesisers and organic textures, including the flute, to create a sound and visual experience akin to a ritual journey.
Umbráfono is a project by Enrique del Castillo featuring a performance with three optical readers that transform light projected onto photosensitive cells into sound. This process produces harmonic sounds, noise, sonic textures and vibrant atmospheres. He, too, will surprise audiences with a performance inspired by and connected to this year's themes.
The poster for this edition of Short Music was created by Ana (@antara.wav) in collaboration with Javi (@elconejocervantes). It pays tribute to early experiments preceding cinema, with a phenakistoscope as its centrepiece. This device creates the optical illusion of moving images through drawings depicting successive phases of a movement. In their phenakistoscope, each element relates to one of the acts: the rabbit masks evoke Damoridemort, the elongated hands reference Paco's drawings, and the illustrated film strip represents Umbráfono.
