The Final Fair

For all of us, life is a film with a predictable ending. With 7 billion future clients in mind, Spanish and Portuguese companies from the funeral sector meet every year in Ourense to show off their latest products and services. There are diamond-studded and mink-lined coffins, hardwood urns, Swarovski crosses as gifts and luxury cars for a high-class public. No, in death we are not all equal, although obviously it comes to the rich as it does the poor in the end. In The Final Fair, morbid fascination, dread and black humour are washed down with cava and Iberian ham.

Filmmaker, DOP and lecturer Ricardo Íscar is an extremely versatile person. Educated in Law and Film, Ricardo works as a filmmaker, DOP and lecturer. Ricardo directed a long list of prizewinning documentaries that stand out for their interest in human relations and ethnographic content. His films have been selected in competition at festivals such as the Berlinale, IFFR, BAFICI and the Vienale. For his recent documentary The Pit (2012, Special Jury Award at the Malaga Film Festival and nominated for the Gaudí Awards), a film released in cinemas, he was the first filmmaker to gain full access to Barcelona’s most prestigious opera house El Liceu. For Dance to the Spirits (2009), he travelled to the Cameroon jungle to follow the works of a healer who handles all illnesses caused by sorcery. In Black Earth (2004, i.a. Grand Prize City of Lisbon at Docs Lisboa), he was the first director to make a film about the daily job of mine workers, spending weeks underground with them in a Spanish mine. His short doc El Cerco (2002-2006) was awarded as Best European Short Film at the Berlinale, won the Special Jury award at the Málaga Festival and was the winner at Documenta Madrid. For Badu, Stories from the Negev Desert (1994), he accompanied Bedouin nomads on their travels through southern Israel. Ricardo has been invited to participate as a jury member at many festivals, such as the Festival of Malaga and Nyon Du Réel. He currently teaches “Documentary Creation” and “Documentary Direction” at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.