This year In-Edit celebrates its 15th anniversary. How do you think the festival has evolved?

Cristian Pascual: A lot. I think we have evolved in all aspects. In our DNA is trying to read what happens each year and try to apply changes the next one. The first edition was simply to show a type of content that interested us and did not have much visibility. We came from music, not cinema. As an event, we try to make going to the festival not like going to a conventional movie session. We have more musical performances or a DJ preparing the sessions. We make the act of coming to the In-Edit an act in itself. We have evolved a lot with windows, industry, trying to be leaders or at least experiencing new ways. It is the first festival, and in fact I would say the only one in Spain, which has for example its own video platform on demand with an alliance with Filmin.

Being a festival of music documentaries, we always play a little on the margins and this allows us to experiment a little more. At the level of industry, we have evolved much accompanying the local sector. No music documentaries were practically made in Spain, there are more now. In-Edit has become a target for these new directors and this at the same time is generating the festival itself to evolve to accommodate local and young talent, something that we had pending. For example, in this edition we have a new section Km.0 for documentaries in Barcelona and a section of short films for young directors under 30 years, to detect young talent and encourage the local industry. I believe that in all the stages in which we have worked, we have always evolved with what we considered the festival itself, the public and ourselves as organizers demanded.

​Do you think this is the festival's success? That is more than a festival. It has In-Edit TV, In-Edit shorts, In-Edit Films with a crowfunding to make the documentary about Parchís. Usually the cinemas are not filled, but your festival is a public success.

CP: I can't tell you why we are successful or not successful, I think it has to be analysed from the outside. We have a strong brand positioning as In-Edit and this goes beyond the fact of being a film festival or located in Barcelona. We end up looking at other projects in the city like Sonar, Primavera or others that have international visibility and a strong brand concept that in the end is what strengthens the message. Obviously, this is what allows us a kind of diversification and internationalization that I think has given a very clear message to the public and they trust us. I think we have been very solid in programming and artistic direction these fifteen years.

We have worked very hard in communication that has been linked to the brand. We have to keep in mind, the music factor is very attractive. We have a hook that mobilizes an audience that maybe was not so much of cinema or maybe yes, but that in the In-Edit has responded more. We can say: it is not only a festival of documentaries about music, but about life explained through music. And you can do it because you have vehicles such as audio visual and music that are very powerful. We have tried to make the event transpire in another way and not be a traditional film festival, but have an identity of its own.

What selection criteria do you follow when choosing the documentaries?

Luis Hidalgo: We are a festival of music documentaries. That means that music is the substrate. However, we are not interested only in the chronological explanation of the life of an artist, of a movement or a musical scene which may also be interesting. We are very happy to find documentaries that through music and how the musicians live music explain the social, political and economic background of the place where this music was born. It is a photograph of the societies that emit it. French music speaks a lot about what France is like, English music of what England is like, the flamenco of what Andalusia is like, and the Catalan music of how we are the Catalans. It is a reflection of society. As the music or stories linked to it helps us to better understand the world around us, we are interested. This does not mean that we say no to a conventional or classic documentary like this year’s John Coltrane. I quote it to quote one, not that it is the most prominent, but it is a good example. In the documentary of Coltrane obviously, there is a background of what was the American society in the time he lived. However, we were more interested in the theme of the accentuated spirituality of a musician who made that his music also had this spiritual accent. We are looking for stories with a little depth.

​Do you think it’s difficult to attract people to a documentary that perhaps has a very interesting story, but does not have a big name behind it?

LH: We have discovered year after year that it’s not entirely true. If you ask me if a documentary that has the name of a famous group works better, yes evidently. If you ask me if a Stones documentary will have more audience than one about music in Ethiopia, I'll say yes. However, I think people, at least our audience, are increasingly aware of the explanation of other realities that are not neighbours. We have discovered that the situations of violence or war in the Maghreb and Middle East that we have explained at the festival, are very interesting for our public who is increasingly aware that the world is one and that a situation in Africa knocks at the door of our home and we live it every day. It's not like when the world did not have fast media and anything that happened in China took two weeks to get here. Now it's immediate. We have perceived that there are a number of issues that have to do with how people live in Muslim countries for example that are increasingly interesting for our audiences. Just as this year there are documentaries about homosexual music that will interest you a lot. They start from the base that sometimes we think that homosexuality lives in freedom, and according to the protagonists of the documentary, it has a moral charge that sometimes goes unnoticed. You have to be a good homosexual and to be one you have to always go very cool, spend a great deal of money on clothes and it is a relationship as scheduled as the relationship you have with your father.

CP: From the early years we had studied that if the artist didn't appear in the title, we had a problem or at least we had to make an extra effort. Over the years this has changed a bit and has improved because we have an audience that already knows us and spend more time taking a look to the programming. Everything has to do with a speed of attention to the information that we have right now that is problematic. People have 10 minutes to enter the In-Edit website and watch the movies because they have to do other things. You have to be very strong so that people decide to devote two hours of their time to watch all the programming, with all the synopsis and trailers. I think the most difficult thing is to separate the audiences you have. The people who only come to watch a movie and therefore the name is the most important thing and those who already trust you, the subject is interesting for them or have already discovered that music is an "excuse."

Do you think festivals like In-Edit have helped to revalue the genre? Very few documentaries and less musical documentaries are released in cinemas.

LH: Yes. We have noticed it in two ways. In the influx of public that is notorious and we are very happy to begin to perceive that there are many people who make documentaries to be seen in the In-Edit. If In-Edit had not offered an exhibition platform for 15 years, there are documentaries that would not be seen. This year we have noticed it a lot. Precisely for that reason we have opened the festival to civic centres and to give opportunity of exhibition to pieces that maybe are not extraordinary from a formal point of view, but where the need to explain a reality prevails.

Is this also the reason of a​ new section like Km.0 in the Civic Centres?

LH: Exactly. Documentaries that maybe outside our reality would have no interest. Sean Levitt, a jazz guitarist in Barcelona during the 90s, is a figure that outside Barcelona is not known, nobody knows who it was. Does this mean that the documentary does not interest to our audience? No, it can interest our most immediate reality. That is why we have to include it in our programming. In the same way that In-Edit Chile program documentaries that here would not have any type of echo since they speak of realities that are very foreign to us. We can never forget that we are from this city and we live here. And we want to reflect the personality of this city. As much as we program a documentary on Tom Jones, Oasis or the Stones, if it turns out that we are not looking at what surrounds us we are acting fool.

Is this new Km.0 section and the programming of In-Edit in the civic centres in Barcelona Districte Cultural your way of getting closer to the city? To the public that is not per se In-Edit audiences?

LH: Indeed, we are very satisfied with the public we have. And we aspire to have public, not just In-Edit public. When we program a documentary about John Cage or Rostropóvich that interest a more adult audience, I go to the halls and I see people of 60 years, who are neither modern nor anything. Normal people. Veterans? Old? Say what you want. They are part of our audience. Yes, it is true that there is indeed an In-Edit audience, but we aspire to reach broader audiences, as we are getting with certain programming. We also want to decentralize the festival, which does not take place only in the centre of Barcelona. And you can also see documentaries in places where they already have a tradition of cultural consumption. The civic centres make interesting cultural programming. We have to go where people go to stimulate their interest and curiosity and someday they will come to the festival or not. Maybe they do not even come, but we will continue to go towards them.

CP: It is a way to give back to the city everything that has given us. In the end we have to be useful. It makes no sense that you generate an industry and you encourage people to explain stories of the city, when many times for resources is very difficult to do them because there are no resources, but then you don’t put the windows to show them. Actions like Km.0 have a lot to do with this. Apart from In-Edit being a festival that you can move in Madrid, Brazil or Chile, there has to be an essential part in Barcelona that has to be useful. So, if we can help explain musical and visually the city's musical ecosystem or smaller stories that are more local or less resourceful, you cannot put them to compete or compare them with an international production, but they deserve having a visibility in the city because they have a sense here, we will do it. However, much we believe In-Edit is an inclusive festival, it is a challenge that other audiences from other neighbourhoods that have never come before to In-Edit do so. If this serves not only for people to know you, but for more people to see this type of content, it makes sense.

What do you think the festival's relationship with Barcelona is? What does it bring into the city?

LH: A space of explanation, an agora or forum. I think the most interesting thing that In-Edit offers to the city is this. A place where the city can be explained. Documentaries such as that of Nitsa or Fernando Gallego Nando Diskontrol this year, are a good example. There are documentaries that explain who we are and if there was no In-Edit they probably would not exist. In fact, these two I know that they have done them because of us. Secondly, the possibility of covering the curiosity of people who not only give away music when Christmas arrive, but have a much more intense relationship with music. People who read about music, who consume it and who want to know more about their favourite artists or those who are curious. Offer a showcase to explain and to watch. I think they are two of the important things that the festival offers to the city.

Was In-Edit Shorts also born to support the emerging talent thanks to the screen you offer?

LH: Yes, because there are pieces that by their footage do not enter a movie theatre. We can’t charge a normal ticket for a short film. As we are also noticing that creativity is increasing, it is a format that we cannot ignore.

CP: One of the goals of the In-Edit was to boost the local industry. In a scenario where it is so complicated to produce audio-visuals and music documentaries specifically, it costs a lot for someone from 25 or 30 years to make a musical documentary of an hour and a quarter to present to In-Edit. This is evident. However, at the same time there are many talented people in universities, film schools, or on their own. The short format we had a little forgotten and pending to explore seemed a good way to link it to enhance and highlight young talent because they are here and they are the directors of the coming years. Our vision is also to give the maximum visibility possible and give the windows and tools that we have at our disposal to help them.

In-Edit is an example of internationalization and is one of the few festivals that have editions abroad. How did you come up with this expansion? And what do you recommend to other festivals?

CP: We have considered it as an action almost more of public relations than of business because it made us different from the majority and because it reinforced what we were doing as a brand. We have considered going "relaxed" in how we internationalized to not bureaucratize in excess the fact of setting up a festival outside. You need many resources to do it well. We also understand that we are working with culture that is more complicated to manage. We continually learn and evolve with our local partners to assess how to do it: Be closer to a franchise or a collaboration, if there is more local content or a very strong international part. We have taken it more as a testing ground. They are some seeds that are spread around the world, some have germinated very well and others have cost more, but in any case, are part of our idiosyncrasy and our brand values ​​and way of growing. If we had the resources, we could be on another type of scale. We leave it for the next few years.