Carmen Tortosa pre-releases her fourth short film: El Tribunal

Condes de Gabias hosted the screening, prior to its national premiere at the Alcances Documentary Film Festival in Cadiz.

On the right, poster of the pre-screening in Granada. On the left, director Carmen Tortosa at the colloquium after the screening of the film. Photo: Sabina Rosado / Film in Granada

On Tuesday, September 19, the fourth short film by director Carmen Tortosa (Granada, 1958) was premiered at the Palacio de los Condes de Gabia of the Provincial Council, to a room full of spectators. The filmmaker from Granada returns with a social film that opens a window to the daily life of a medical evaluation court (technically known as EVI in spanish).

The documentary shows the stories of five patients who went through the court. Tortosa said in the presentation that “they have a total of twelve interviews recorded, if we had included all of them, we would not be talking about a short film”. In nineteen minutes, the film immerses us in the problems and concerns of a butcher, a university professor, a prison officer, a worker in the harvest and a nurse. The combination of all the sound and visual elements chosen to narrate and connect this piece makes it very close and normalizes a reality little treated in cinema, normally considered taboo.

Stills from the short film “El Tribunal” / Barrios Producciones, Gadol, Shoji Films.

“El Tribunal” (2023) is produced by Barrios Producciones, Gadol and Shoji Films and has the participation of Film in Granada, the Film Office of the Provincial Council. In addition, a crowdfunding campaign was carried out to obtain the financing to finish the short film. At the end of this month it will begin its tour of festivals. It will start at the Alcances Documentary Film Festival (Cádiz), one of the most important events of this genre in our country, then at K-lidoscopi (Cullera), and will continue its tour through national and international festivals with the help of the distributor Selected Films.

On the left, the official poster of the Alcances Documentary Film Festival. On the right, behind the scenes of the shooting of “El Tribunal”. Photo: Eva López / Film in Granada

From doctor to filmmaker

Tortosa has told in a recent interview that “it was hard for me to internalize the term filmmaker, a vocation that I began with my father’s camera and that I combined with my other great passion: medicine, to which I have dedicated most of my life”. In 2018, she directed the documentary “El tiempo de la sal, tras las huellas de Víctor Fernández Gopar“, which was screened at the 18th Lanzarote International Film Festival.

A year later, she co-directed the short film “Mujer como árbol” (2019), funded with the support for the financing of cinematographic works of the ICA (Portugal). It was selected in multiple national and international festivals, among them the Portuguese Academy Awards, which would make her the award for Best Documentary Short, also the 27th Granada Film Fest where she won the AAMMA award for gender perspective. The film shows the daily life of a woman living alone and how she faces this reality. In this film she worked with Daniela Cajías, Goya for Best Cinematography for “Schoolgirls” (2020).

The Los Albaricoques traffic circle, on the way to Cabo de Gata (Almería), would be the setting for her next work: “La Rotonda” (2022). The film has as protagonists the inhabitants of this place, and was premiered in November last year at the Lorca Awards, winning the award for Best Documentary Short. This piece leaves a record of a settlement that no longer exists, therefore, it becomes a historical document. Her cinema records the reality and will always remain in that line, as she said during the colloquium after the screening of her, so far, last short film: “El Tribunal” (2023).

Finally, she also revealed that she already has a shooting date for her next work, also of a social nature, “but with a much more playful theme,” she confirmed to an audience that was amused by the playfulness of the filmmaker from Granada.