The Cines del Sur Film Festival will be showing around thirty films of which ten will be competing in the Official Section from 8th to 13th June

The Regional Government of Andalusia is backing the festival, which will have a variety of parallel activities and new spaces and will be attended by a large number of directors and producers. 

Ana Gámez, the Delegate of Education, Culture and Sport, María del Mar Villafranca, the Director of the Council of the Alhambra, and José Sánchez Montes, the Director of the Cines del Sur film Festival, presented the new aspects of the ninth edition of the Festival and the programme. 30 films will be screened, 10 of which will be competing in the Official Section to be held from the 8th to 14th June.

Ana Gámez restated the commitment of the Regional Government of Andalusia and in particular of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport to this festival because “we are convinced of the need to give the public the chance to see other takes on reality and other filmmaking from different continents such as Africa, Asia and South America”. She also highlighted the importance of the participation of ten women (directors, producers and actresses) who “will give the audience a different perspective on the lives of women in other countries, in some cases in very disadvantaged situations, especially in the case of women who in some cases have no rights of any kind.”

For her part the Director of the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, María del Mar Villafranca stated that the "Cines del Sur Festival has now become a traditional part of each spring in Granada, an essential appointment with the ‘Seventh Art’. Our support for this initiative has proven to be an effective method of cultural cooperation". She also said that she was very pleased with the poster and the image of the festival. This shows the Court of the Lions, whose recent restoration won the Europa Nostra prize as an example of how to restore a monument of such importance. The Director of the Festival, José Sánchez Montes, outlined some of the new features for this year. In addition to the traditional venues such as the Isabel la Católica theatre, where the inauguration and the screening of the official section will be taking place, there will also be open-air screenings in the Plaza de las Pasiegas, “the venue for the open screen cycle and the closing ceremony, which will give all local people the chance to come and feel part of the project”. 

The Corral del Carbón will be the venue for the series about Berber cinema and the Al Jazeera Documentary Section, while the Bombonera of the University will be the setting for ‘So far so near’. The Palace of the Condes de Gabia will be exploring the life and works of Rithy Panh, regarded as one of the most influential documentary makers in the world in recent decades, with the screening of both documentaries and films. The Granada Congress Palace will be getting involved in the Festival for the first time with the second screenings of the films in the Official Section and the Euro-Arab foundation will be hosting the second showing of the Berber films and an exhibition  of a collection of instruments used in Amazigh music, the traditional music of the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali and Niger. This exhibition will be open to the public from 9th to 30th June from a 9:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30, from Monday to Thursday and from 9:00 to 14:00 on Fridays. The activities organized in parallel with the Festival include the presentation of a book by Laura Montero Plata entitled El mundo invisible de Hayao Miyazaki (The invisible world of Hayao Miyazaki).

Sánchez Montes also presented the line-up for the Official Section in which they will be screening films of the importance of Memories on Stone, by Shawkat Amin Korki, who won the Gold and the Bronze Alhambra in 2007; Solos, the second film by the Peruvian director Joanna Lombardi which had its world premiere in the Rotterdam Festival; Fievres by Hicham Ayouch, winner of the FES-PACO in Marrakech; Today, by the Iranian director Reza Mirkarimi, who won the Critics Award at the Rotterdam and Tallin festivals and who competed in Cines del Sur in 2012 with A Cube of Sugar. The Brazilian film director Theresa Jessouroun denounces political and police violence in the favelas in A queima roupa, while the Japanese director Mipo Oh brings to Granada The lights shine only there, the film selected to represent Japan in the Oscars. Cinema within the cinema will be present in Why can’t I be Tarkovsky, by the Turkish director Murat Düzgünoglu; Necktie Youth, by the South African Sibs Shongue or Bwaya, by the Philippine director Francis Xavier Pasión.

José Sánchez Montes said that the festival will have a top-class jury made up of the Moroccan director, Farida Benal-yazid; Luis Dufuur, an expert in communication and cinema from Uruguay and Moisés Salama, a University professor and documentary maker, who was born in Melilla and has an expert knowledge of the problems of North Africa.

As regards the prizes he reminded the audience that there are two cash prizes, the Alhambra de Oro (Golden Alhambra), worth 5000 euros for the best film in the competition and the Alhambra de Plata (Silver Alhambra), which offers 3000 euros for the Best Arabic Film in the festival. The Alhambra de Plata is awarded by the students from the Faculty of Audiovisual Communication at the University of Granada. There are also two other prizes that come without a cheque, namely the Alhambra de Bronce (Bronze Alhambra) awarded by the jury and the Public Award for the Best Film. Both Ana Gámez and María del Mar Villafranca joined José Sánchez Montes in inviting the people of Granada and those visiting the city to take part in this intense week of high quality films in interesting venues, which are either free or at very low prices.