When night falls, vampires and cinema will wake up in a small town in Teruel. There will be Nosferatu, Dracula and all those creatures that have terrified (as well as fascinated) lovers of vampire cinema. Castelnou, with just 100 inhabitants, will host from July 17 to 19 a free festival for film buffs that has become one of the most interesting proposals in the cultural life of Aragon.
The festival will once again transform Castelnou into a meeting point for lovers of the seventh art, fantasy literature and popular culture. The proposal, organized by the Cultural Association La Chopera and the Center for Studies of Bajo Martín, is committed to bringing cultural programming to rural areas and to turning the heritage and spaces of the municipality into film sets.
EXPERIENCE ALL THE PHASES OF A SHOOT
The good reception of this edition is already noticeable before it starts. The film workshop has completed its 20 available places and will allow participants to experience all the phases of an audiovisual production, from preparation to final shooting. The piece will be set in the church of Castelnou and the Gothic crypt of Jatiel.
The program will begin on Friday, July 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the church of Castelnou with the official presentation of the weekend. The session will include the screening of «A Bloody Dance», presented by Dani Calavera; the opening of the exhibition «Dracula in the Cinematographic Poster», curated by Roberto Sánchez; and «Liquid Poetics», a recital of poems by Víctor Guiu.
That same night will take place one of the most special moments of the festival: the screening of Nosferatu, by F. W. Murnau, with live musical accompaniment by Naos. The session will recover the spirit of the great silent film screenings and will serve as a gateway to a journey through more than a century of vampires on the big screen. At 10.30 p.m., at El Fosalico, the Aragonese short film Stari Poznanici, by Antonio Tausiet, will be screened, and then Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola’s version.
On Saturday, July 18, the program will continue next to the Martín River with the children’s and youth cinema workshop, a talk on the vampire in cinema by Pilar Sicilia and a themed cocktail workshop inspired by the universe of Dracula. In the afternoon, the Municipal Pavilion will host the live recording of the podcast Sin Rebobinar, under the title Dracula Ye-Ye. Vampire and pop culture, and later there will be a round table on vampirism and popular culture.
Saturday will close with a night session that will combine cinema and music. At 10:30 p.m. «The Dance of the Vampires» by Roman Polanski will be screened, and from midnight the Dance of the Vampires of Martin will arrive, with a concert by Lex Lüger and DJ session Afterbite. The organization also encourages you to go in costume to complete the vampire atmosphere of the weekend.
On Sunday, July 19, the film workshop will live its final phase in the Gothic crypt of Jatiel, where the filming will be completed. The cinematographic closing will take place in the afternoon at the Municipal Pavilion, with the screening of the short film Beware, by José A. Delgado, and the classic Dracula, by Tod Browning, the 1931 film that immortalized Bela Lugosi and forever fixed the image of the count in the collective imagination.
All activities will be free and free of charge until full capacity is reached. In addition, there is a free camping area, although the organization recommends prior registration to guarantee a place. With this fifth edition, Castelnou once again demonstrates that cinema can also find great stages in small towns.
