How Bridge-Builder Sandra Lipski Created the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival

A little over a decade ago, Sandra Lipski was an L.A.-based actor-filmmaker from Berlin who decided she should submit her film to a festival in Mallorca — the gorgeous Spanish island where she spent much of her youth.

There was only one problem: Mallorca didn’t have a film festival.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. “In California, it felt like every street corner had its own festival.”

So she started the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, which this year marked its 11-year anniversary. Its slogan is Bridging Cultures-Bridging People, and Lipski’s own cosmopolitan background is reflected in truly global programming. Last year’s most-celebrated films came from locales as far-flung as Germany, Jordan, Iran, Greece, Turkey, El Salvador, the United States, and, of course, Mallorca.

“Mallorca is such an international island and you can reach it so easily,” she says in the latest MovieMaker podcast, which you can check out on Apple or Spotify. “If everybody hasn’t been here, they’ve at least heard about it.”

The festival’s reputation and locale is a strong lure to guests who have included Ana de Armas, Danny DeVito, Mads Mikkelsen, and Melissa Leo. This year the festival will present German filmmaker Wim Wenders with its Evolutionary Honorary Award.

Lipski makes it a point of pride to welcome an Oscar winner to every edition of the festival. And the intimate feel and relaxed atmosphere contribute to guests actually participating, rather than posing for a few pictures and dashing off.

She was especially delighted when the Oscar-winning Leo dropped in on the festival’s acting workshops, and when DeVito, who was receiving an honorary award and presenting his 2016 short-film “Curmudgeons,” watched all of the other films in the short-film block and joined a panel afterward. Begging out on the screenings never crossed his mind, she said.

“Danny was like, ‘Are you kidding me? When does the block start? Give me a popcorn and a Diet Coke!’” she laughs.

To start the festival, she enlisted a Mallorca-born childhood friend, Pau Vich Salas, a globe-trotter with a strong business and marketing background who, Lipski laughs, “tells me what I can and cannot do” financially. He’s the executive director of the festival, and Lipski is the director as well as founder. The festival’s very international team also includes Los Angeles native Bianca Valencia, the feature film programmer.

Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands of the Mediterranean, which also include Ibiza, is an especially popular destination with tourists from Germany and the U.K., who are drawn by its pristine beaches, the stunning Serra de Tramuntana mountain range, and breathtaking landmarks like the Bellver Castle, which dates back to 1311. Lipski held the festival in person last year, taking advantage of stunning outdoor venues in Palma, the main city. She barred food and drinks, kept everyone masked and socially distanced, and held a successful event where everyone went home healthy.

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The festival gives careful consideration to every film that enters, and Lipski has used her experience as both a festival director and filmmaker — she recently shot a short with her daughter and cinematographer husband—to help other moviemakers figure out how to navigate the festival circuit. Through the Festival Key (thefestivalkey.com) she does strategy for filmmakers and consulting for festivals.

“All of my filmmaker friends ask me a lot of questions about submitting, and I was like, wait: If you guys have these questions, many more people have these questions,” she says.

So she helps those people build bridges — because that’s what Sandra Lipski does.

Main image: Sandra Lipski at the Evolution Mallorca Film Festival with Melissa Leo and Mads Mikkelsen.