Spanish Cinema Now heads into its packed second week with in-person appearances, more of our rare Berlanga retrospective and the official Spanish submission to this year’s Academy Awards.
Get an early start tonight with Double Steps, a rumination on artist François Augiéras's travels to Africa that liberally blends fact and fiction. Director Isaki Lacuesta, screenwriter Isa Campo, and producer Luisa Matienzo will attend the screening at 7pm.
Then Friday night, join us for two special events: first, a screening of Black Bread, a premiere at last year’s Spanish Cinema Now and Span’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Co-star Nora Navas and producer Isona Passola will attend the screening of the film, an adolescent drama that begins when a boy finds a father and son dying together in the forest. Stay for a special sneak preview of renowned Catalan director Ventura Pons's latest film Year of Grace, a bracing comedy about an older woman in Barcelona who takes in an 18-year-old new arrival.
Earlier Friday and again Saturday afternoon, check out this year’s short program of fiction and documentary shorts, “Shortmetraje,” one of which features talking beds that reveal all about the couples that inhabit them.
Other weekend highlights include Don’t Touch the Dead, Kid, a Berlanga-esque comedy showing Saturday night, and Contacts, a rare print restored by Madrid’s Filmoteca from 1970 that was among the earliest underground anti-Franco features.
The rest of the week ahead includes encore opportunities to see Torrente 4, The Waves and other festival hits, plus our ongoing retrospective of the films of Luis García Berlanga, the great Spanish filmmaker who died last year. Screenings continue all week with films like the twisted would-be love story Life Size (1976) and
Spanish Cinema Now runs through December 22, and don’t forget that four-film passes start at just $28 for members. Complete listings and tickets are available here.
