PEPE ESCRICHE AWARD

CIMA, ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN FILMMAKERS AND AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA

The Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media (CIMA) will be tributed with the Pepe Escriche Prize at the 49th edition of the Huesca International Film Festival. The key purpose of this professional entity born in 2006 is the promotion of an equal presence of women filmmakers and industry professionals, and to contribute to a balanced and realistic gender representation within the contents of the audiovisual industry.

The organization founded by professionals such as Cristina Andreu (its current president), Iciar Bollaín, Isabel Coixet, Judith Collel, Ana Díez, Chus Gutiérrez, Daniela Féjerman, Patricia Ferreira, Eva Lesmes, Laura Mañá, Josefina Molina, Cayetana Mulero, Inés París, Dolores Payás, Helena Taberna, María Ripoll, Manane Rodríguez, Mireia Ros, Nieves Maroto, Virginia Yagüe and Teresa de Pelegrí, currently has almost 700 members, national representation and delegations in Andalusia, Catalonia, the Canary Islands, and the Balearic Islands. Film and TV directors, screenwriters, producers, actresses, editors, composers and representatives of the different creative and technical areas make up this cross-professional and open entity. The very association insists that it is not exclusively open to women and they consider the involvement of colleagues of any gender in the sector as essential to achieve the objective of full equality.

Nowadays, the role of CIMA is key to promoting the visibility of qualified and trained professionals, a backbone to provide references for the new generations, a natural door to access the film industry. Its work extends to a wide variety of field and aims to balance historical prejudice in all the creative and technical positions of the sector. In the words of its board of directors: “our industry will not be comprehensive and real if it does not have the effective women perspective.”

Thanks to its active work and constant dialogue with institutions and organizations (national and regional), the association has introduced many initiatives such as the exhibition “Women who do not cry” in collaboration with the Film Academy, “CIMA en Corto”, meetings and programs such as “CIMA Mentoring” (for personalized advice) and “CIMA Impulsa”, which promote the development of projects written by new or experienced female scriptwriters, thus facilitating their access to the audiovisual industry.

PEPE ESCRICHE AWARD

The Pepe Escriche Award was established in 2009, as a tribute to one of the forerunners of the festival, who also led it for over thirty years. José María Escriche passed away in 2008. The Huesca Film Festival Foundation decided to celebrate this homage to honour the understanding between different cultures through cinema. This prize is awarded to organizations, institutions, personal or collective initiatives related to cinema and audio visual arts and is authored by sculptor Isidro Ferrer.

People and institutions awarded from the first edition are those as follows: La Escuela de San Antonio de los Baños (2009), World Cinema Fund (2010), María Lourdes Cortés (2011), Morelia International Film Festival (2012), Spanish Film Archive (2014), Cine en construcción (2015), Pilar Martínez-Vasseaur (2016), Ibermedia (2017), the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (2018), Egeda (2019), and Bergman Chair (2020).