Is anyone going?
Sadly this is always at the worst time of year for me. Can never get time off work in October.
Yea same here, plus I think there’s not enough of a retrospective component
to really make it worthwhile
I attended the first and third AWFF, after that the event was taken over by Almeria City Council, who couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery!
Their aim, they say, is to attract film production and tourism, yet the link posted to the English language version of the site has no info, only on the Spanish version.
The problem I found with the festival is that the recent release westerns shown in competition were almost all dreadful small budget crap - The plus side was an opportunity to meet some of the special guests, many of whom are no longer with us.
Since the council took over, the event has become a family oriented affair, with line dancing and kid’s dressing up as cowboys and Indians - it has very
little to do with the history of our favourite genre. It’s more like a rodeo or circus than a bonafide film festival.
However, if like me you’re not into kids and circus, I can strongly recommend a trip to the area just to see some of the magnificent desert locations, where you won’t see another soul, and you’ll find Morricone music automatically playing in your head as you wander through the hills and ramblas.
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Yes seems that way… commerce trumped culture
It’s more a case of giving the job to a group of people who know very little about their area’s cinematic history.
It’s a free event now, but the reality of the situation is that it’s not for Spaghetti Western buffs - I would guess that 90% of the locals who attend don’t even know who the guests are. Sure they know ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’ and the other Leone films … but even the people who work at the film sets, Sweetwater Ranch, Fort Bravo and Mini Hollywood are quite ignorant also.
As I mentioned earlier, the festival is geared to attracting film makers, and it’s never really going to happen the way it did in the 1960s … westerns aren’t in vogue, and the last big budget production that was made in the area, ‘Exodus: God and Kings’ may as well have been filmed in carpark, as all the natural vistas were erased by CGI graphics.
Not my cup of tea spending money to listen to screaming kids.
Not mine either, but I have no choice
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