Embracing new technology with Heritage in Motion 2021 winners: Heritales international heritage film festival

In autumn 2021, Europeana was proud to be part of the international jury for the annual and prestigious Heritage in Motion awards, run by Europa Nostra and the European Museum Academy.  In this theme, we talk to the 2021 award winners and find out how the cultural heritage sector is using new digital technologies in their inspiring projects.

Today, María Zozaya, Nicola Schiavottiello and Fernando Mendes tell us about the Heritales film festival, which received a ‘Special Mention’ in 2021. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your winning project?

Heritales is an international film festival that promotes global heritage by focusing on the ‘seventh art’ of cinema. It began in 2016 because we wanted to share diverse narratives involving natural and cultural heritage. The Heritales project has always had a very idealistic idea of spreading the importance of heritage among our local communities - adults, children and families - where we’re based in Portugal. 

Our programming is presented in different forms: movie screenings followed by debates with the directors themselves, workshops and conferences, and other types of narrative forms like installations, exhibitions, animations, video and table games. We even project heritage films and animations from across the world on our own platform, ‘Heritales Stage’. Our films and events are presented in many languages because we want to contribute to adapting heritage traditions to modern languages. 

By projecting cinema in public spaces, framed by our community outreach strategy, we have created the scaffolding for exchange between academia, the local community and our international visitors. The objective of Heritales is to engage all kinds of people, using our non-stop festival as an instrument for education.

What did using digital media and technology make possible for this project?

Digital media has allowed us to reach broader audiences, faster, but digital media is also part of our philosophy. Our goal is to spread heritage in different ways, going beyond the traditional methods, ranging from storytelling to theatre or artistic installations. Therefore, the worlds of animation and moving images open up limitless opportunities to share traditional cultures, adapt them to the present day, unveil their enigmas, and tell the stories of their wins and losses. 

We are also interested in talking about culture and extinct traditions - the cinema, animations and documentaries that we project are essential for us to denounce the various forms of extinction of heritage. We do this via our programme choices (for example, ‘Nawabi Baluchiari’ by T. Banerjee, ‘Torneiro da Mouraria’ by T. Sarantopoulos) and with the help of our partners’ media actions linked to natural and cultural heritage defence (such as Survival Brasil, Incomindios-UK, Crowd-Recycling, or ‘Yasuni Green Gold’ by G. Haro). We also project films with installations about the renewal of cultural heritage rituals (for example, ‘I’m burning’ by Andreu Signes). The call for films and animations about heritage for 2022 is open now!
 

How have your audiences reacted to this project?

We are fortunate because the public responds very well to our activities. People appreciate  the project, regardless of whether they are involved in presentations, debates, installations, or open space talks. Audiences attach on very different levels. In Trafaria, Lisbon and Évora, we have a loyal audience; some even participated in short films promoted by our members! 

Children are delighted when we have programmed installations or video games, while parents, educators and teachers also want to do more activities (therefore, we will programme more didactic sessions soon). 

For example, when we screen at conferences or European Researchers Night, people want to collaborate with us to screen our films. In general, our non-commercial programming is always received with great interest and curiosity. The organisations we collaborate with often invite us to come back. All that shows that many things can be done with a small budget and great enthusiasm!

What difference does this Special Mention award make to your project and future work?

Heritales project organisers consider the Heritage in Motion Awards' Special Mention an essential milestone in every possible way. An award endorsed by Europa Nostra and their relevant heritage institutions is unique for anyone linked to heritage defence. It is crucial to give visibility to the cultural assets or world traditions that we reveal in our sessions. It is essential to support independent cultural activity in European provincial cities (such as Évora or Trafaria); and our team represents citizens of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece.

At the same time, it confirms to the institutions that support our project that they are making a good bet, and gives a bonus to the country where we have our headquarters (Portugal).

The Heritage in Motion award reminds us that it is worth being united in this beautiful effort, that we are not alone. It was essential to maintain confidence in ourselves. The jury director Takis Sarantopoulos, seeing the other magnificent nominees, expressed that we were in the role of David against Goliath. And as the Heritales festival co-director Maria Zozaya said at her presentation in Venice, just being nominated allowed the Heritales team to believe that dreams can come true.

Follow Heritales on their website, blog, Twitter, Facebook.