NEW 4th Almeria Western Film Festival

The Almeria City Council announces its Western Film Festival will be held October 10-12, 2014.

The fourth edition of Almeria Western Film Festival (AWFF) will be held from October 10 to 12 in Tabernas. This was announced through a press release at the local council, now its main producer. "The festival is consolidated after three consecutive years as a key approach to tourism and cinema showing off Tabernas and the province," while highlighting that they have the support of the Council of Almería and the Junta de Andalucía.
 
The news comes a week after the creators of the event, Cesar Mendez and Danny Garcia, announced they were disassociating themselves from the festival after the City recorded the name of the festival. It was done, according to the mayor Mari Nieves Jaén, to "protect it" and not to stop them.
 
Thus, the City of Tabernas says AWFF organization will have a team "that will give a new impetus to the event." "Several sections, a western film retrospective and current cinema films are proposed, and different parallel activities focusing on gender, which will boost tourism and leisure in our region. We want a festival that fans can come to see these films for the general public of all ages," says Mari Nieves Jaén.
 
Under the current organization, the "main purpose" of the festival is "to bring value to the town" as the setting for "recordings in the national and international film industry," and recall that about sixty years ago what took place in the early films in the Tabernas desert. "The organization aims to turn the festival into a cultural and recreational event, national and international, based specifically on the western character," read the note, which anticipates that the fourth edition of AWFF allow fans to maintain" a direct encounter with visiting professionals."
 
The Council also emphasized that the festival is "reinvented" in this issue and offer a "program of activities related to tourism and western Almería as "Land of Cinema."
 
Danny Garcia: "This festival is a farce"
 
The insults continue toward the Almeria Western Film Festival. "This festival is a travesty," says Danny Garcia after learning that the City of Tabernas assumes the organizing of the event he created alongside César Méndez in 2011.
 
Garcia showed his displeasure after the Consistory registered the name of the festival without them. Jaen Mayor Mari Nieves claimed last week to this newspaper that they did so after learning that "The festival was offered to other municipalities," but never with the intention to "waive" the founders of AWFF. These statements are now refuted by Danny Garcia. "We always wanted the festival to develop in different locations. So we talked with the City of Nijar, because we wanted to make the opening in San Jose. Our planned projections included the capital Almeria, but the mayor was not interested in anything happening in Tabernas."
 
Garcia, who also claims "30,000 euros was invested in the first edition," says the AWFF was born to "pay homage to the movie people who put Almería on the map and not a few village politicians with delusions of grandeur."
 
In this regard, the mayor of Tabernas has said that Garcia and Mendez did not want the politicians to have a presence at AWFF. "They did not want us to be in the picture, when the festival also had the support of the Council and Board," said Jaén, who recalls an attempt to "boycott" the organizers at the close of last year for this reason.
 
"A councilor threatened to take the prize when recriminations that appeared on the plates were not the logo of the festival but of the City Council, and down in small print was seen 'Almeria Western Film Festival'. They are the ones who sabotaged the event," argues Danny Garcia.