Cinema and visual arts festival
El festival
Panòptic Festival is an hybrid festival of film and visual arts with a critical view on the impact of digitalization and new technologies on contemporary societies.
The digital revolution is radically transforming the foundations on which modern societies are structured, at such speed that we can hardly spend time to understand the developement and analyze the consequences -negative and positive- that this paradigm shift implies.
Through its heterogenic program, Panòptic wants to generate discussion and knowledge around the moment of radical transformation that we are living as a society, analyzing the present and future status quo, and also exploring the possible counter-narratives and resistances to it.
A festival in symbiosis with heritage: Mataró Prision
The project of the festival, as well as its name, was born linked to a heritage building of the city of Mataró that since the third edition became the main venue of the festival: the Mataró Prision. The building was the first in Spain to be built following the structure of the panopticon, which Jeremy Bentham applied to architecture.
This inspired the birth of the festival and its theme: the era of digital surveillance.
The renovation of the Mataró Prision finished in 2021. In 2022 it officially made its openning as the headquarters of M|A|C Mataró Contemporary Art museum, the visual arts area of the Mataró City Council, with whom the organization of the festival has woven complicities since its first edition in 2019.
Since 2021, Panòptic Festival is a resident project of the M|A|C.
Editions
1st edition: September 26th, 27th and 28th, 2019 at Café de Mar, Mataró.
2nd edition: September 25th and 26th, 2020 at Café de Mar, Mataró.
3rd edition: September 23d to 26th, 2021 at M|A|C – Prison of Mataró.
4th edition: June 11th to 19th, 2022 at M|A|C – Mataró Prison.
5th edition: May 11th to 14th, 2023 at M|A|C – Mataró Prison and Cafè Nou
6th edition: May 29th to June 2nd, 2024 at M|A|C – Mataró Prison, Cafè Nou and Foment
Organization
The festival is organized by the Panòptic Cultural Association, a non-profit organization established in January 2019, with headquarters in Mataró, created especially for the management of the festival.
Team: Elisenda Triadó, Marina Grifell, Sandra Martí and Roc Domingo Puig.
