T
he 13th edition of Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF) officially gets underway on October 30th and will run through November 5th, 2024. Founded in 2012 by actress and producer, Sandra Lipski, the Evolution Mallorca has gained international recognition over the last decade, bringing key actors, directors, writers, cinematographers and other industry professionals to the island for the week-long event. Most importantly, the festival has created a unique opportunity for independent films, including documentaries, shorts, experimental films and films made on the Balearic Islands to be presented to the Mallorcan public.
Born in Berlin, Lipski was raised in Mallorca between the ages of 9-18, moving to New York for film school and then onto Los Angeles for 20-years, where she worked in the film industry with her husband, who is a cinematographer. She moved back to the island with her family this year, in part because of the growing success of the festival.
Lipski’s motivation to start a film festival on the island came about when she completed her film thesis project in 2011, in Los Angeles, and sent it off to festivals around the world. She wanted an opportunity for her family, who were still living in Mallorca, to see the film, but there was not any festival where she could submit it. After a lot of research, Lipski, along with a small team of friends, launched the first edition of EMIFF in 2012. It was a 3-day event with 20 films. 13 years later, EMIFF is a week-long event with 140 films screening across the island. Within those 140-films are feature and short films, Spanish short films, documentaries, children’s films, experimental and animation, new talent films and music videos. The objective of the festival is to be international, screening films made around the globe along with a spotlight on the Balearic Islands. Submissions are made through the platform Film Freeway beginning January 1st of the year through mid-August. This year they received 1200 submissions, all of which were reviewed by a team of six programmers.
