The technological revolution which has arisen in the western world over the last three decades - and especially since the 1990s - has involved a number of social and cultural changes the analysis and elucidation of which has become one of the fundamental challenges of the human being in current times. We now live in one of the most complex societies that the world has ever seen: globalisation, neo-liberalism, ecology, geopolitics, neo-imperialism, cooperation with only a few concepts which make it possible to imagine the new spaces that man is going through in a deployment in which on many occasions there is no place for reflection and analysis.

In parallel, however, at a moment at which the enormous capacity of dissemination of the words that are close to power seems to threaten the capacity of the individual to express him/herself, the same technology that has made it possible to create an "official version" of the world, has brought with it an unusual democratisation of the communications production media, and with it, alternative and highly valid ways of interpreting, reflecting and analysing the contemporary world. Thus, in a space such as the west, where we have aspired to create a so-called culture of image, actions have occurred aimed at replacing those arbitrarily manipulable codes with real virtual languages capable of making clear the mechanics on which a unitary vision of the world has been structured.

The strategies have been multiple and many groups of citizens have developed systems of communication, allying themselves with the possibilities offered by new technologies to leave a testimony both of what can be seen and of what cannot be seen. In that space, it does not appear to be a coincidence that there is an increase in one of the oldest cinematographic genres, and one with proven effectiveness: the documentary, which we might define as the effort of a group of citizens to tell the truth about the world - a part of the world - using the resources that they have available and with the only objective of leaving a testimony of what they were capable of seeing. The "document" and the "documentary filmmakers" have become a sort of alternative "eye" through which it is possible to see "another" world in our world.
 
It is in this context of thought and reflection on the image and the documentary genre that the MiradasDoc Festival wishes to be involved. In each one of its editions, MiradasDoc, which is an international project, wishes to reflect on the genre, on the image, on the new virtual languages, to publish scripts, to make critical reviews, to interview the main animators of this form of expression and above all to get to know the activity of the documentary filmmakers in the so-called third world, because probably they are the only ones who can offer a proper testimony of what is happening in their countries.