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FUERTEVENTURA MAGAZINE hoy
ARTE Y CULTURA / ART AND CULTURE / KUNST UND KULTUR
María Sanz Esteve – Prize winner of the award for best director for her short
film called Serendipia
“Fuerteventura, main character on the big
screen”
FMHOY - Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura is back on the national cinema
screens. And this time not only as the scenery but
as the main character.
The event is due to the short film “Serendipia”
being awarded the Premio del Público Madrid 2010
which is the first film that María Sanz Esteve directed
within the 13th Curt Ficcions short film Festival. The
prize which does not consist of any financial reward,
offers for two copies in 35 millimetres of the film to
be made so that the film can be shown in cinemas in
over 20 Spanish towns during one year, which would
otherwise be unfeasible for this type of film.
The director granted us a few minutes of her time
to give us a few details about her cinematographic
path and her work.
María Sanz Esteve has been a resident on the
island for 10 years, she was born in Madrid and graduated
in Sciences of Image although she confirms
that she didn’t learn from university what she knows
about cinema. Her restlessness and almost obsessive
passion about cinema from a very young age made
her move to London as soon as she graduated from
University. She lived there for 7 years completely
immersed in any opportunities of work or activities
related to cinema and she finally managed to access
the city’s film library,- she tells us enthusiastically-
where in addition to being able to watch as much
cinema as she wanted, from the greatest masters in
the world…they used to pay her to do it! – from this
moment on, she participated in various productions
as production assistant, director’s assistant, extras’
coordinator, dressing room manager, decorator and
even driver of the electronics and machinists truck,
which she had to pass the appropriate licence for… -
This was her best school and allowed her to find out
in depth about every aspect of cinema. She then
moved to Fuerteventura where she says she found the
perfect environment to develop her creativity without
the influence of globalisation.
The idea of “Serendipia” came from a micro-tale of
the Ecuadorian writer, who lives in the Canaries, Patricia
Sacoto… “A child walks in an immense desert. To reach
the shop and come back can be a blessing or a nightmare.
Sometimes it only depends from each person’s own
perspective”. Set on the island of Fuerteventura in the
50’s, “Serendipia” can be seen as universal story about
difficult times… The story tells about the return trip of
Carmencita to a shop to buy a few groceries in order to
feed her family… María tells us that it is a fiction based
on a true story, a tale or a trip, where the good and the
bad sides of life are not always clear.
For the production, the director recalls that she
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was able to rely on a great team of professionals and
unconditional enthusiasts, whose input was indispensible.
The production was paid by Dunes Films,
a production company created by María three years
ago, which is sponsored by the Canarian Government
and benefits from the participation of Ventura Films
and Sebastián Álvarez as associate producers and
the collaboration of Fuerteventura’s Cabildo. Asiria
Suárez Álvarez got the role of Carmencita; Soledad
Aguiar Montelongo was Señá Manuela and Lorenza
Machín interpreted Abuela. Furthermore, some residents
of the island appeared in the story such as
Suso Machín or María Jesús Martínez Ruíz (the true
protagonist of this story). The music creation consisted
of an original sound track from Miguel Pérez Díaz
and the introduction of themes given by the Majoreo
Timple player Domingo Rodríguez “El colorao” and the
group from Tenerife called “Non Trubada”.
After our chat with María and seeing in her eyes the
emotion brought back with memories of the production,
filming and editing of her prized short-film, we now understand
why it is called the 7th art (although it is difficult
to really understand the reason for its seventh ranking).