Maguas
One of the more worrying aspects about film festivals worldwide is the general obsession with accruing prestige by means of premieres. This practice often has a detrimental effect on the audiovisual ecosystem, as it prevents interesting films from reaching as many audiences as they potentially could. Films are left sitting on the shelf for long periods, waiting for a specific festival to decide to screen them. Meanwhile, time passes, and other regions—and audiences—are deprived of the opportunity to see them.
Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote has always taken a bold stance against this policy, sometimes even conceding national premieres to other events earlier in the festival calendar. The philosophy of our festival is that films should be seen as widely and in as many places as possible. The Maguas section—named after a word associated with sorrow or nostalgia for something that could not be—therefore includes films that, in previous years, were not screened due to premiere commitments elsewhere. In doing so, Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote underscores the importance of these films and ensures their projection for the island’s audiences.