Prominent Voices in Film and Brain-Related Innovation at the Brain Film Fest 2024

• Claudia Pinto, Marta Romero, and Álvaro Longoria are among the filmmakers presenting their films at the festival.
• María Laura Berch, casting director of “The Snow Society,” and actor Santiago Vaca will discuss emotional management in extreme film shoots.
• Carme Elias will present the Brain Film Fest Special Award to Maite Alberdi, who will participate virtually in the opening ceremony.
• Pau Garcia and Juan Domingo Gispert will talk about artificial intelligence, while Natalia Vilor and Anna Freixas will address brain aging from a gender perspective.
• Nir Sa’ar, screenwriter of “The Longest Goodbye,” will reflect on the psychological toll on astronauts in the pursuit of space exploration during the closing session.

Barcelona, March 8, 2024. – In its 7th edition, the Brain Film Fest will focus on the different stages of the brain as the theme of a program that will feature voices from filmmakers and professionals in neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence, among other fields. The event will take place at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) from March 13 to 17. Cristina Maragall, president of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation that drives the Brain Film Fest, and Albert Solé, filmmaker and artistic director of the festival, highlight the variety of topics and perspectives in this edition, with about forty screenings and activities on mental health, emotional resilience, Alzheimer’s, and brain-related innovation.

Claudia Pinto and Carme Elias

With “The Longest Distance,” Claudia Pinto gained recognition from festivals, the industry, and the public. Her debut film was nominated for the Goya for Best Ibero-American Film in 2015 and won the Platino Award for Best First Fiction Film. Her second feature film, “The Consequences,” won the Eurimages award and the Marché du Film award at Cannes / Ventana Sur, Best Film for the Critics’ Jury, and the debut actress award for María Romanillos at the Málaga Festival. At the San Sebastián Festival, she premiered “While you are you, the here and now of Carme Elias,” a documentary about the Catalan actress following her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, for which she received the Goya and Gaudí awards in 2024.

María Laura Berch

Casting director and acting coach, with over two hundred projects since 2002. She has worked on international films such as “The Snow Society” and “Fever Dream,” as well as series like Netflix’s “The Eternauta” and “Coppola.” In Argentina, she has collaborated with renowned directors like Benjamín Naishtat, Celina Murga, and Ariel Winograd. In 2023, she directed her first film alongside Laura Chiabrando, starring Natalia Oreiro and produced by Tarea Fina, currently in post-production. She was nominated for the Silver Condor for Casting Direction in 2023 for “Sublime” and “The Substitute.” In 2014, she received recognition for Innovation in Casting in Los Angeles.

Santiago Vaca Narvaja

Santiago Vaca Narvaja, born in Unquillo, Córdoba, Argentina, grew up in a lower-middle-class family immersed in art, guided by his parents, Gonzalo Vaca Narvaja (writer and editor) and Laura Sosa Loyola (visual artist). He perfected his skills over eight years at the “La Cochera” Theater in Córdoba under the direction of Paco Giménez, a local cultural figure. Santiago, a graduate in Audiovisual Production from the National University of Córdoba, combined acting and technical roles in various projects, including short films, commercials, and theater productions. Recent notable work includes roles in the musical “El Musical,” the short film “Life is a Dream,” and the feature films “University City” and “The Snow Society,” directed by Juan Antonio Bayona.

Nir Sa’ar

Nir Sa’ar is the screenwriter of “The Longest Goodbye,” the closing film of the Brain Film Fest 2024, a fascinating and original documentary directed by Ido Mizrahy that closely examines the mental health challenges experienced by astronauts during their missions to Mars. A creative producer and veteran storyteller, Sa’ar is attracted to the powerful intersection between technology and human drama, present in titles like “Water” or “Love It Was Not.” An award-winning filmmaker and creator of immersive experiences, his films and technologically innovative works have premiered at Sundance, Cannes, Venice, and the Busan IFF.

Álvaro Longoria

Álvaro is one of the founders of Morena Films (1999). His filmography as a producer includes “Campeonex” (Javier Fesser), the highest-grossing film of 2023. As a documentary director, Álvaro Longoria has produced and directed titles such as “Children of the Clouds” (2012), which won the Goya Award for Best Documentary, or “Two Catalonias” (2018). He also produced three documentaries directed by Oliver Stone. In 2025, Álvaro Longoria produced and directed “The Propaganda Game,” analyzing the various techniques and strategies of propaganda in North Korea. At the Brain Film Fest, he presents the feature documentary “The Life of Brianeitor” (2023), which premiered in the Made in Spain section of the 71st edition of the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

Marta Romero

Graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her most personal projects include “Facunda” (Allegra Films) – a documentary short premiered at IDFA 2022 and nominated for the Gaudí Awards 2022 and “Toda una vida” (Distinto Films), recognized with two awards in the Mentoring of l’Alternativa and the Deluxe award at the First Test of the REC Festival in Tarragona.

Lydia Zimmerman

She has written and directed fiction films, TV movies, documentaries, video art, and cinematographic installations for museums and galleries. She created the ‘Metacíclicas’ project, under which a group of Catalan actresses have come together to break the stigma of menopause. Zimmerman has taught film classes at universities and NGOs. She has filmed in Spain, Australia, Mexico, Haiti, Burkina Faso, and Colombia, combining her work with educational exchange processes. She participated in the creation of Cine Institute, a school for young Haitian filmmakers (2011-2015), conducted media workshops at the Gambidi acting school in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2017-2018), and supported the creation of the Ñambi Rimai indigenous collective (2018-2021). Her filmography explores the hybrid combination of genres and naturalistic acting. She lives between Zurich and Barcelona and is currently writing her next fiction film, a co-production between Eddie Saeta (Spain) and Artisan Films (Switzerland).

Anna Freixas

Prominent feminist writer and retired university professor. She graduated and received her doctorate in Psychology from the University of Barcelona, where she began her teaching career before continuing at the University of Córdoba. Her work focuses on aging, coeducation, and feminism, exploring the transformation of research and teaching in Psychology from a gender perspective. Freixas has contributed pioneering work to the development of critical feminist gerontology, earning the title of doctor honoris causa from the Simón Bolívar University in Barranquilla (Colombia) and receiving several distinctions and awards.

Pau Garcia

Founder of Domestic Data Streamers, where he develops research and data communication projects for institutions like the United Nations, the California Academy of Sciences, or Citizen Lab since 2013. Pau co-directs the Master’s in Data and Design at ELISAVA and has taught at the Hong Kong Design Institute, the School of Visual Arts in New York, and the University of Berkeley. He is the founder of Hey Human!, an artistic residency program combining music, journalism, artistic data research, and social justice.

Natalia Vilor Tejedor

Dr. Natalia Vilor Tejedor leads the Genetic Neuroepidemiology and Biostatistics team with a Ramón y Cajal contract at the BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center, affiliated with the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. She is also an associate researcher at the Department of Genetics at Radboud University in the Netherlands and at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. Additionally, she is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Vic, and the University of Valencia. She coordinates international projects on diversity, neurodegeneration, and genetics within the UNITED Consortium and co-directs the research area of the PRISMA association, aiming to implement equitable measures of affective-sexual and gender diversity in science, technology, and innovation.

Juan Domingo Gispert

Juan Domingo Gispert López is a telecommunications and biomedical engineer with a PhD in electronic engineering. Since 2011, he has led the neuroimaging research group at the BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center (BBRC) of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. As of 2021, he is the principal investigator of the Neuroimaging Research Group in Neurodegenerative Diseases and Healthy Aging at the Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM) and serves as a neuroimaging consultant at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid.