Interview With Sandra Seeling Lipski, Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival Director

Renaissance woman Sandra Seeling Lipski is a trained actor, accomplished screenwriter and director, actor (appearing in projects such as CSI NY, Borat, Jane the Virgin, and, over the past year, Fay Away and The Wake Of Light) and founder and director of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF), which is entering its seventh year this week. EMIFF’s mission statement has spoken volumes to people across continents: “Bridging Cultures – Bridging People.” Lipski’s motto separates this festival from the heard. However, it isn’t just a motto.

Born in Berlin and raised in Mallorca, Spain, Lipski lives in both Mallorca and Los Angeles throughout the year, where the festival takes place simultaneously. So, if festival goers can’t make it Mallorca, they can attend the festival via Los Angeles. EMIFF quite literally follows through on its mission statement, which is why it has experienced so much growth in a short period of time, including the talent it has attracted. Past years have included Blade Runner: 2049’s Ana de Armas, Danny DeVito, and two-time Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash). This year’s honorees-in-attendance include Evolution Honorary Award honoree Marisa Paredes, Evolution Vision Award honoree Mads Mikkelsen, Evolutionary Award honoree Tobias Lindholm, and Evolution Icon Award honoree Melissa Leo.

Lipski received an AA in dramatic arts from the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City in 2004 and majored in Filmmaking at the Los Angeles Film School, graduating in 2011. Lipski has resumed her filmmaking and acting career with the aforementioned Fay Away, a short film she made with her husband Rainer Lipski serving as DP and director, which will be screened at the festival this out of competition this year.

Recently, I had a chance to speak with Lipski about the upcoming festival, the increase in coverage and what new things the festival has to offer this year, Paredes, Mikkelsen, Lindholm, Leo, the film slate, what the future holds for EMIFF, and more!

Alex Arabian for Film Inquiry: Congrats on the festival and another successful, seventh year!

Sandra Seeling Lipski: I am very excited to get this seventh year started! The entire team has worked very hard for many many months and it’s time to enjoy it.

As the founder and director, you perform a ton of tasks, but what is your submission and screening process, and has the number of project submissions grown from 800 since last year? What percentage makes the cut, and are you encouraging of nurturing non-festival-ready films? Are you still a team of four programmers, or have you grown?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: We received around 1000 submissions this year. I believe that being named “One of the 50 Top Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” by MovieMaker Magazine really gave us an amazing push forward. We have selected 104 projects including Feature Films, Docs, Experimental film, music videos, VR content and Films for kids. Ninety-five percent of our program is curated by the submissions we receive, the rest are special screenings like retrospect and centerpiece screenings.

We are very encouraging to first-time filmmakers; we love to discover a diamond and send them off to an amazing festival run after EMIFF. However, films need to be festival ready. It’s important that filmmakers have all their ducks in a row; subtitles, synopsis, trailer, screenshots, bios – you might be surprised, but we come across too many filmmakers who are not organized or ready to plunge into the festival madness or promotion and marketing [of] their product. EMIFF is a team of four programmers, two that make the first selection, and two that make the final decisions.

I love that you’ve bridged two continents, and I love that it takes place in the beauty of the mediterranean. What is new to the festival this year?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: In terms of structure, the festival is seven days instead of ten and we will have parallel screenings for the first time. This might seem normal to many festivals but for us it’s a first and we are eager to see how our audience will respond. We have added more side events; two Acting Workshops, two Producers Clubs (industry talk panels) more networking events/parties and of course our beloved outdoor drive-in cinema is back as well.

In previous years you had the pitch workshop, pitch forum, and producers club, what steps have you taken to eventually make this more of a marketplace for producers, filmmakers, and distributors to meet?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: The Producers Club returns this year with an amazing international lineup of people, including Tore Schmidt (producer of The Danish Girl), Lucinda Syson (casting director of Wonder Woman, Batman Begins), Anna Smith (film critic and head of the London film critics society) and many more who will speak about film marketing and international co-production. We are not doing a Pitch Forum this year, but [our] dream to start a film market is still growing strong and will hopefully become a reality in 2019.

You must be ecstatic to have such talented honorees this year. How did you source such wonderful talent?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: Marisa Paredes will receive the Evolution Honorary Award. She is a grand dame of Spanish and European Cinema and a well known Pedro Almodovar muse. I wanted to honor a woman and, if possible, a Spanish one. I think it was time to pay homage to a local artist after giving our previous honorary award to Danny DeVito. Mads Mikkelsen will receive the Evolution VISION award. He has achieved much to bridge cultures through his international career working on projects in Europe and the US and beyond. He is an amazing role model for young actors everywhere.

Melissa Leo will receive the Evolution ICON Award. She is our indie darling and a true Icon in the independent cinema industry. I am a huge fan of her work and of her as a person. She is a fighter and always looks forward and stays focused. She is all about the work, the characters. She found this incredible balance of indie films and high budget productions like The Equalizer. I adore her.

Any favorite Mads Mikkelson films? Leo? Lindholm? Peredes?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: For Mikkelsen it’s The Hunt. For Leo it’s Frozen River. Lindholm also The Hunt. And for Paredes, it’s Almodovar’s All About My Mother.

I think more and more festivals are branching out from the traditional feature length narrative films and documentaries and shorts. You have an impressive 79 short content projects including international short films, documentary shorts, experimental films, music videos, films for kids and a virtual reality lounge, a well as the Made In Baleares section. Can you speak a bit about these sections, particularly experimental and made in Baleares?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: The Made in Baleares section was born three years ago with the goal to dedicate a space in the program to our local filmmakers. It is important to me to really give these young talents their own platform to shine and present their films to our international audience. The section has grown at a rapid pace. In the first year we had five films, this year we have 25! I believe having this special section is also encouraging local filmmakers to get their projects done, work harder, and know they have a platform waiting for them once their film is ready.

The experimental section was created out of selfish reasons. After watching countless narrative feature and short films as well as documentaries, these shorter, experimental films felt like a breeze of fresh air. I loved watching them and being able to just enjoy the colors, textures, and very innovative ways they use to shoot very tricky scenes; such as underwater, challenging environments, reflections, new camera moves, etc. It’s like watching art on screen. I love it and so does the audience. It’s like that frozen treat you get in between the main courses in a fancy restaurant. It cleans your palate and refreshes your mind.

In between organizing this event and balancing work-life, have you had much time to focus on filmmaking again? Are there any personal projects that you are working on?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: Yes. I have made a short film together with my husband who is a DP/director. Fay Away will be screening at this years EMIFF edition (out of competition).

Have you made any progress on the Evolution Lab since we last spoke?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: We are working on it. We have a plan and are now looking for funding. Our goal is to start it in 2019; on a small scale but at least start it.

Last year, you mentioned Marc Clotet was on the Feature Film jury, is he joining the jury again this year? What other noteworthy jury members do you have this year?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: Marc Clotet was a jury member in 2017. Since then, he joined the Festival Advisory Board and helps grow EMIFF wherever he can. We have a great jury this year! Lots of local filmmakers as well as award-winning Spanish filmmaker David Victori and MovieMaker Magazine Journalist Hus Miller, to name a few.

Can you speak a little about your feature film and documentary film slate this year? It seems like you have some wonderful films.

Sandra Seeling Lipski: The entire program is curated with a mission to reflect our festival’s mission, which is Bridging Cultures/Bridging People. I am happy to feature some great first time filmmakers such as french actress Sara Forestier with her debut as a writer/director M, US indie filmmaker Laura Holiday with Daddy Issues, and our opening film, Funny Story, by Michael Gallagher. In the documentary department, we feature some amazing stories. For example: Hayati: My Life, The Silence Of Others, and Out Of Plastic, a local documentary about the plastic situation on the Balearic Islands and how we can help ourselves to improve the situation.

As the founder and director of such a progressive film festival, what is your next, tangible goal that you wish to accomplish for the event?

Sandra Seeling Lipski: The main goal is grow our audience and attract more international visitors to attend the festival.

Film Inquiry would like to thank Sandra Seeling Lipski for her time and insight.

EMIFF will run for seven days from October 25 to October 31, 2018.