Building an image of the world that is as comprehensive or complete as possible entails accepting reality as the multi-faceted, complex and inaccessible tool that it is and shaping it into a seamless, unprejudiced discourse. However, it is difficult to accept the fact that reality is nothing more and nothing less than a tool for analysis. We invariably hope to see it as its own result, as the product of itself: as the final and true enunciation of an extreme exercise in looking. We look at things in the hope that, in the end, somewhere up ahead this reality will always be there. That is to say, that there will be a reliable and valid image of the world that will both explain it and offer some sort of consensus. And since hope offers unlimited space– at least as far as ethics are concerned – our desire turns what we look at into what we expect to see. By creating the right desires, we can construct whatever reality we wish, but in doing so we deny reality the touching quality of existing for desire, of existing for action and surprise. Those who aspire to obtain a comprehensive image of the world must not accept a unitary vision of reality that is the result of consensus. Instead, they should look to that other vision built on plurality, information and knowledge.

Since its founding in 2006, the Guía de Isora International Documentary Film Festival, MiradasDoc, has aspired to become nothing less than a modest, though rigorous, space for plurality, information and knowledge. Our intention has been none other than to attempt to take a comprehensive look at the world using the investigative potential of the documentary genre as well as the possibilities it offers for transfering the creation of the discourse to other cultures and civilizations. Replacing familiarity with surprise, consensus with originality, and repetition with difference.

This year, we will celebrate our IV Edition from September 31st through October 7th. We hope you will join us on the adventure of expanding our view of the world, making it more comprehensive, and giving visibility to things that, without anyone noticing, simply happened.

Welcome.