Costa del Sol

New Marbella film festival a success

By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 16 Dec 2015 • 12:19

Mari Pajares and her father iconic comedy actor Andre Pajares.

The very first “iFilmmaker International Film Festival” ended on the evening of December 8 with a creative explosion of talent at the closing awards ceremony at the Teatro Goya in Puerto Banus.

The room was filled with filmmakers who came from 75 countries with notable guests including comic actor Andrés Pajares and Jesus Lloveras with 16 nominations for the Goya awards, and such luminaries as the Russian Ambassador, Mayor of Marbella, and Councillor for Culture. The big winners of the night were two greatly contrasting films, Battalion, with a budget of €10 million produced by Sony and Columbia, and Third Degree, an independent film made without studio support and on a very tight budget, with the audience applauding its creator and main actor Jesús Lloveras.

In the short film section the undisputed winners were The Trench by Javier Llamazares, and Zero by David Victori.

A UK Filmmaker also shone brightly at the Awards having scooped an award for ‘Best Horror/Suspense Feature Film’ for The Profesional. Tara Groves, writer and director of this independent feature film from West London, said “The fact that our zero budget feature The Profesional (misspelled on purpose) was able to win best horror/suspense feature film was just the perfect ending to an amazing week. “

The creators of the festival, MakingNoizeFilms (Mari Cielo Pajares and Gary Stennette), and distributors of the films (Golden Mile Productions), are delighted and a little surprised because ‘nobody expected such a fantastic reception by the industry internationally,’ said Mari Pajares.

Golden Mile Productions based in London and Marbella with affiliations in the US said “We are very proud to have partnered with Mari and Gary on such a talent filled festival and we will endeavour to grow these talented filmmakers and will work to obtain distribution for them.

We were amazed at the strength of content in the festivals’ first year and now will go from strength to strength exposing more talented filmmakers from around the world! We aim to create a mini Hollywood in Marbella and this beautiful location which had great feedback from filmmakers makes it the perfect place for film festivals and also for filming in the area!”