Where is film? Can this question be answered? What has happened in the field of visual arts and music is now happening in film. Is it really in cinemas? Do big productions make any sense? These are the questions that have been raised by the most advanced, radical film-makers today. The arrival of refined technology making it possible to shoot a scene in high resolution with a mobile; distributing a film on the web with easy access to it; mass training in film schools of qualified people; the gradual closure of cinemas – or their concentration on the outskirts of towns – as more people watch things at home; the rise of documentary and testimonial film; the growing problem of conserving heritage using new techniques and the archive resources required have all led film into a radically different position to that it held until one or two decades ago.

Moreover, new narrative technique, the influence of a literature that seeks formulas like the graphic novel and the fragmentation of poetry have influenced the new form of scripts. That Béla Tarra, for example, decided in 2012, just as his career as a leading figure in film was on the rise, not to make any more feature films, is significant and must be seen as questioning the paths recently opening up in this art form. The top-flight film-makers taking part in the Encuentros are to some extent “thinkers of film”, so to speak. They represent the smartest, boldest ideas in film today.