ALEGRÍAS RIOJANAS (RIOJANAN JOYS) 
A seeker of the otherness and realities beyond the Mayan Veil, César Velasco Broca’s (Amurrio, Álava, 1978) experimental cinema is a product not only of his hobbies but of his own psychedelic experiences, literal and metaphorical trips for exploring the strangest, most fantastic and hermetic aspects of existence. Velasco Broca has found in Mariano Espinosa (Logroño, 1978), the perfect graphic translator of his dreams, nightmares and visions. Together they worked on the film Alegrías Riojanas (2021), which will be screened at Imagine Fantastic Film Festival 2023. 

CONCEPT ART FOR ALEGRÍAS RIOJANAS 
Draftsman and artist Mariano Espinosa has spent almost 25 years illustrating Velasco Broca’s world. Initially connected through the Riojanan fanzine world, Mariano Espinosa was the natural choice when Velasco Broca needed an illustrator for his storyboards. 

When Mariano Espinosa received Velasco Broca’s call in 2018, he was deep into the reading of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy. So that, when Velasco proposed to him to draw a storyboard for his new film, set in a sinister medieval purgatory populated by hermits and bestiary creatures, Mariano jumped at the opportunity of working on a project so spiritually related to his last reading experience. 

To better comprehend their creative process the exhibit presents stills of the final shots and the illustration they were based on. This way, you can observe which remained more faithful to the original illustration and embraced more changes from the initial concept. The illustrations not joined by a film still, belong to the deleted sequences from Alegrías Riojanas. 

All the illustrations are monochromatic, just like Velasco Broca’s films, and they are made with graphite on DinA4 and DinA3 paper. 

THE TAROT OF ALEGRÍAS RIOJANAS 
Velasco Broca asked Mariano Espinosa to draw new tarot cards in the same style as the Tarot of Marseilles. The deck chosen as the primary reference was the Tarot by Jacob Joerger from 1801, although they also referenced the decks from François Henri (1718 / 1730), Jean Dodal (1701) and Pierre Payen (1713). Each card features a character from the film and versions of the Tarot card that relates the most to the role or symbolic nature of the said character. 

Recently the Tarot has added the first card with a character of The Future Testament, his upcoming feature film, so it cannot be ruled out that Velasco and Mariano will continue to make new Tarot Cards until they complete the 22 arcana. 

All the illustrations of the Tarot from Alegrías Riojanas are made with cChinese ink and watercolours on DInA4 cotton pulp paper.  

FANTASTIC ALCHEMY 
These works are shown in the context of Imagine Film Festival’s 2023 theme of Fantastic Alchemy, imagined as the liminal space between science and magic, knowledge and myth, belief and practice.

Keynote lecture by Dr. Zahra Khosroshahi  

In a country that has tried to erase, marginalize, and ignore women’s bodies, filmmakers have found creative ways to confront and challenge such ideologies. Turning to genre films, this talk explores the various ways women’s bodies show up on the Iranian screen.  

Dr Zahra Khosroshahi (she/her) is a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow.  Her PhD dissertation dealt with visual representations of women in contemporary Iranian cinema. Her research focuses on how Iran’s cinematic movements and productions respond to the country’s social conditions, and how the visual culture, specifically cinema, provides a platform for resistance and activism. She is currently working on her forthcoming book Iranian Women Filmmakers: A Cinema of Resistance (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).