Seagulls cut through the sky

Mariana Bártolo is a filmmaker, performer and multimedia artist who lives between Germany and Portugal. She finished her studies at KHM - Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2020 and graduated at Escola Superior de Dança in Lisbon in 2008. “Seagulls cut through the sky” (2023) co-written and co-directed with Guillermo García López, premiered in Cannes at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes program “Directors Factory, North Portugal”. Her other short-films ”Mansa" (2021) and “Whale Beards” (2021) were screened in several international festivals, such as the Palm Springs Shortfest, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, IndieLisboa, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and Filmfestival Max Opüls Preis. She has been involved in various productions mainly associated with documentary and performance and develops parallel projects in the areas of photography, installation and drawing. She is currently working on her new experimental documentary “At the table” and collaborating in the development of the series "Em banho maria" and the intermedia project “The loss of the night”.

Guillermo García López is a filmmaker born in Madrid, Spain. His first work, ‘Frágil Equilibrio’, won the Goya for Best Documentary Feature after its premiere at IDFA. In 2023 he premiered two short films at Cannes: ‘As gaivotas cortam o céu’ at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes, and ‘Aunque es de Noche’ in the Festival de Cannes Official Selection, nominated for the Palme d’Or, which was subsequently selected in multiple festivals, including Curtas Vila do Conde and the San Sebastian Festival, in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. He is currently preparing his feature film ‘Ciudad Sin Sueño’, written at the Spanish Film Academy Residency, Berlinale Script Station and La Résidence du Festival de Cannes. In 2020, Guillermo received the Princess of Girona Award for Arts and Literature.