Filmmaking for Social Change was born in 2018 from the collaboration between the Navarrese artist and documentary filmmaker Mikel Belascoain and the London anthropologist Patrick Hazard, director of the London International Documentary Festival. With a small home projector and the initial support of the Hotel Maisonnave, the idea began to take shape of appreciating cinema through small stories with something to say, in which the multiple facets of the human condition have always been present.
Childhood and migration, populism, love and hate, or more recently the future, have been the focus of the artistic program of each edition, offering a panorama of different viewpoints through the eyes of local, national, and international artists who have visited Pamplona during the festival. All of these perspectives have shared the same spirit: a commitment to an independent, critical, and open vision, with the aim of inviting the viewer to reflect.
In this eighth edition, under the title “BEING HUMAN,” the festival presents itself as a humanist manifesto in a cultural ecosystem saturated by artificial intelligence and in a context of growing dehumanization. Rather than a cinematic selection, we propose a laboratory of thought and dialogue that uses cinema and the humanist power of audiovisual artistic expression to explore the essence of our identity, placing the spectator face to face with their own vulnerability and resilience.
Over the next few days, we will witness stories that question what it means to be human today: how we relate to one another, how we care, how we resist, and how we create meaning in a world marked by technological acceleration, conflict, and social fragmentation. We will see how creators address these issues from a non-utilitarian, genuine, and profound perspective in their contact with fellow human beings. From narratives that unflinchingly portray our current reality to poetic explorations of the human condition, each screening and each exhibition has been carefully curated to inspire, provoke, and, above all, open a critical dialogue about who we are and who we want to be.
We want to question the established, face uncertainties and, perhaps, find in art new perspectives to navigate the complex paths that open before us. Year after year, this festival aspires to consolidate Pamplona as a city open to creation and avant-garde art, with the human being at the center.
