The Seville City Council has decided to postpone the Seville European Film Festival, which was to be held in November, to avoid it coinciding with the Latin Grammys, an event in the world of music that, as explained by this Wednesday the delegate of Culture, Minerva Salas, will monopolize all the municipal attention.
The postponement means, in practice, the cancellation of the 2023 edition, a decision that has surprised the sector, taking into account how difficult it is to find a place in the international festival calendar. In addition, if it is held in the first half of the year, as the Seville City Council has promised, it will have to compete with other events with similar characteristics such as the Malaga Festival (dedicated to Spanish cinema) and will have to find a fit into the complicated program of spring, when the two great Sevillian festivals take place, Holy Week and the April Fair.
Municipal government sources have explained to EL MUNDO that the postponement does not imply a breach of any contract with the film industry or its professionals because, simply, at this time of the year “there was nothing signed”. “The 2023 edition does not exist on paper,” explains the team led by José Luis Sanz (PP), who has taken the reins of the institution after achieving an absolute majority in the municipal elections on May 28, wresting the Mayor's office from the Socialist Antonio Munoz.
The director of the Seville Film Festival is currently Ildefonso 'Tito' Rodríguez, who was appointed at the beginning of May to replace José Luis Cienfuegos. His stage at the helm of the Sevillian contest therefore begins with a controversial decision by the government team that calls into question the future of the festival. However, from the Seville City Council it is insisted that what is sought is precisely that an event with the international impact of the Grammy Awards does not overshadow and tarnish the appointment with European cinema. These same sources emphasize that Tito Rodríguez, who was appointed by the previous municipal government, has agreed with the postponement.
As explained this Wednesday through a press release by the Culture delegate, holding the festival in November “is incompatible with the development of the numerous and extensive activities that are being prepared” for the Grammy Awards, whose ceremony leaves the US for the first time.
Salas defends that the celebration of the Grammy Awards in Seville “is going to be quite an event for the city”. The XXIV Latin Grammy Awards gala will take place on November 16, as announced last April by the executive director of the Latin Recording Academy, Manuel Abud. But there are other events that will be held around this event, starting the official program on the 12th and taking place in different locations in Andalusia..
Resignation of the director of ICAS
The change of date of the Seville Film Festival is known only one day after the resignation of José Lucas Chaves Maza was announced as manager of the Institute of Culture and the Arts of Seville (ICAS), who had been in the position just one month. Chaves Maza alleged “personal reasons” to explain his departure and the mayor of Seville expressed his regret for that decision hours later.
It is the first resignation in the new government team. And the PSOE, through its councilor Myriam Díaz, took the opportunity to reproach the “improvisation and lack of projects” of the José Luis Sanz team, for a city that is a “cultural benchmark for the entire country”. The socialist mayor stressed how the City Council has not yet presented the city's cultural program for autumn.