The Festivalito La Palma – Festival de las Estrellas is a multidisciplinary festival that has creativity as its ag as an instrument of awareness and social change.
It has been held annually on the island of La Palma since 2002.
Through the seventh art, music and theater, their activities help us understand the universe, our relationship with nature, and who we really are.
We are not looking for answers. We just want to ask ourselves questions. I wish we learned to uninvent ourselves.
The Festivalito is not just a lm festival, it is a festival where cinema is made.
That’s why La Palma Rueda lming contest is the main section of the Festivalito.
In the rest of the sections, artisan lms are screened (Cinerama), festivals and concerts are mounted (Festivalito Sonora) and activities are carried out aimed at training and promoting the meeting between artists and emerging professionals (Festivalito Lab).
The Festivalito Tour carries a sample of the short lms shot during the week of the contest by di erent festivals, cinemas, museums, houses of culture and schools.
Original, refreshing, dynamic, innovative…, the Festivalito has always been a singular and unique festival that bets on a new model in which creativity, cooperation, and coexistence are as important as its rm commitment to other ways of looking at, doing and understanding art.
The first edition of the Festivalito took place in 2002, becoming the rst festival in Europe dedicated exclusively to digital cinema. It was also the pioneering festival in the world in the incorporation of a lming contest to the dynamics of a lm festival.
These circumstances have led the Festivalito to consolidate today, and thanks to the unconditional support and sponsorship of various public institutions and private companies, as well as the unconditional volunteers, as one of the main cultural references of the Canary Islands and of greater national and international impact, being the most important cultural event on the island of La Palma and the Canary Islands.
Estrella Polar Award
The Polar Star Award is the highest award given by the Festivalito.
With this award a tribute is paid to those institutions and lmmakers who defend a cinema made without any kind of concessions, an unmissable, daring, fresh, cheeky, mouth-blank cinema, a cinema made from the guts, that breaks moulds and that questions the system and its conventionalism of lm production and distribution.
The Festivalito pays tribute every year to a cinema that forces us to ask ourselves questions instead of o ering us answers. In short, a
cinema that responds to an inner pulse and a need to express itself, knowing how to connect and excite an audience eager for new creative experiences.
Festivalito Star Island
The location of La Palma, the climate and its height above sea level, make it one of the most suitable places on the planet for stargazing.
Not surprisingly, numerous telescopes have been built in the Roque de Los Muchachos by di erent countries.On the beautiful island we have always known it and that is why we like to share this wonder with the rest of the world through our name: Festival of the stars of La Palma.
Festivalito La Palma is twinned with NightLight Group Luxembourg
In addition to making video projections of night skies that leave the viewer speechless, we invite Starlight guides or astrophotographers and we make excursions for stargazing and night photography workshops.
Festivalito Social
For the entire organisation of the festival, cinema is a means of social communication that exerts a great in uence, it is a mighty and powerful tool, a vehicle of expression to transmit stories that shake the interior of people and make them re ect.
In fact, it is one of the main values and ideals of the Festivalito that we maintain and promote since its rst edition in 2002.
Every year, all the pro ts of the Festivalito collected from the sale of t-shirts and other items go to a non-pro t organisation.
Objectives
The Festivalito La Palma uses cinema, music and theatre as instruments of consciousness and social transformation, both on a personal and collective level.
These are its main objectives:
- Offer a set of recreational cultural activities related to the audiovisual and performing arts.
- Serve as an instrument of tourism promotion of the island of La Palma and the Canary Islands abroad, thanks to its great media coverage.
- Favour island and regional economic revitalisation, thanks to the economic bene ts generated by local companies during the festival week, the creation of jobs at the island level and for promoting the diversifcation of the island economy through the cultural and creative industry.
- Promote the enhancement of the Natural, Cultural, Material, Archeological and Scientifc Heritage of the Canary Islands and the island of La Palma.
- Dissemination of social, educational and cultural values related to creativity, awareness and cooperation, through means of mass culture such as cinema, theatre and music, encouraging the development of new models and new forms that bring us closer to a healthier, fuller and happier life.
- Promote the shooting and exhibition of works by Canarian, national and international audiovisual creators who conceive of the seventh art as a means of expression and dissemination for social change and personal growth.
- Disseminate the cinematographic and scenic creations of Canarian, national and international creators that have been conceived and produced away from the models of conventional creation and exploitation.
- Encourage coexistence between artists from di erent disciplines and with the local public.
- Offer participants a unique life experience.
Record Book
The Festivalito, already in its XVIII edition, is a consolidated, mature and successful project that, in addition to media recognition in national and international publications, has received various awards, honours and nominations throughout its career.
- Microclima Award 2019, Association of Filmmakers of the Canary Islands Microclima
- Award-Tribute of Radio Galdar and its program “When music is magic”, Gran Canaria
- Tribute to the Festivalito La Palma at the Festival Tiempo Sur, La Palma
- Tribute to Festivalito La Palma at the Dunas Film Festival, Fuerteventura
- Award-Tributee at the Casa Canarias in Madrid
- Nominated for the Canary Islands Culture Awards