8th Spanish Film Festival Schedule and Synopses
This year’s Spanish Film Festival will be held in several locations: Greenbelt 3 Cinemas, Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theater), and SDA Museum (College of Saint Benilde).
Schedule:
Synopses:
Don’t Ask Me To Kiss You, Because I Will
Title: No me pidas que te bese, porque te besaré
Director: Albert Espinosa
Year made: 2008
Format: cine, 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 95 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
This comedy is about Albert who’s repenting his decision to marry and takes guitar lessons with “special” people to distract himself before the wedding takes place or not. Espinosa, the scriptwriter of Tu vida en 65 minutos, takes in his first feature film the same approach as Woody Allen in many aspects, making you think what makes us special and what makes us jerks.
Strangers
Title: Forasters (Forasteros)
Director: Ventura Pons
Year made: 2008
Format: cine, 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 105 min
País producción España
Versión originalCatalán
SubtituladoInglés
Forasters tells the story of a single family that lives through two traumatic events with a forty-year gap between them: the loss of a family member and the arrival of new unfamiliar neighbours. Two events that end up disrupting the alleged harmony of the family. The fragility of the family ties, the passage of time, the meaning of existence, and above all, the fear and distrust of the unknown (the outsider, the stranger, the foreigner) upsets the “sensible” mentality of these traditional individuals.
14 Kilometers
Title: 14 kilometros
Director: Gerardo Olivares
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 95 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Politicians and sociologists are one in saying that immigration is the main problem which the West would face in the 21st century. The African and European continents are separated by the Strait of Gibraltar with just “14 kilometers” distance. In Africa, there are millions of people whose only aim is to enter Europe due to poverty experienced in their country. For these immigrants, hunger understands neither borders nor barriers. This feature film wants to contribute a bit to the immigration phenomenon. Thanks to Buba Kanou, Violet Sunny and Mukela Kanou, we will know a little bit more on the reality of Africa and, with it, we will embark on a perilous long trip towards Europe, passing through Mali, Niger, Algeria and Morocco.
Boystown
Title: Chuecatown
Director: Juan Flahn
Year made: 2007
Format: 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 100 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Victor works in a real estate agency in the well-known Chueca neighborhood of Madrid. He hides a terrible secret: he makes apartments available for sale by murdering the old ladies owners that live in them. Then, refurbishes and decorates the apartments to sell them to gay couples with high purchasing power. His ultimate objective is to transform Chueca into a kind of London Soho area.
Caotica Ana
Title: Caótica Ana
Director: Julio Médem
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 119 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Chaotic Ana is the story – journey of Ana over four years of her life, from 18 to 22. A countdown from 10 to 0, as in hypnosis,through which Ana comes to see that she doesn´t alone. Her existence seems to be the continuation of the lives of other young women who died tragically, all of them at 22, and who live in the abyss of her unconscious memory. That is her chaos. In words of the director and scriptwriter of the movie: Ana is the princess and the monster of this fable feminist against the tyranny of the white man.
One Word From You
Title: Una palabra tuya
Director: Ángeles González-Sinde
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 98 min.
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Rosario and Milagros are friends and they both work as sweepers. They are young, and they don’t have boyfriends, cars, friends nor future but an unexpected encounter changed everything. The tragedy of usual lives, relationship bordering on friendship and love, loneliness, family ties and moral obligations.
Welcome Mr. Mashall
Title: Bienvenido Míster Marshall
Director: Luis García Berlanga
Year made: 1953
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 95 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
The little village of Villar del Río is awaiting the song performance of Carmen Vargas, ‘The Great Andalusian Star’. The quiet village is governed by a deaf, naughty and good-natured Mayor, who’s only seeking the way to give life to the place. By the same time good news comes to the village: the arrival of North American high personalities that will give economical aid to the nation city by city, village by village. The Mayor doesn’t know what to do to welcome them. Carmen Vargas’s agent throws surprising initiatives, moving all the village people just to prepare a better reception for the foreigners. His idea is to disguise all the farmers as Andalusians and add colour to every street with typical decorations. All of them start to work, and also to dream and think about what they’re going to request the Americans, who will come with lots of dollars.
Mediterranean Food
Title: Dieta mediterranea
Director: Joaquín Oristrell
Year made: 2009
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 90 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Sofia’s (Olivia Molina) story, the best chef in the world, and the two men who helped her to become a legend. For 16 years, Sofia grew up between burners and tables at her parents’ kitchen until she was converted into a well-known chef. She becomes famous, thanks to the two very important men in her life: Toni (Paco León), the ideal man with whom she get married and has three kids, and Frank (Alfonso Bassave), who turned to be her lover.
Astronauts
Title: Astronautas
Director: Santi Amodeo
Year made: 2004
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 94 minutos
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Daniel is approaching forty. Laura is fifteen… almost sixteen. From what they say about him he must be a poet or a comic-strip illustrator, or both. He has just overcome a long addiction and, once back home, is trying to recongnize his life based on a strategy which consists basically in doing exactly what a “normal” person does. Laura arrives in the city searching for her brother Andres, Daniel’s neighbor. But the brother is not home and she decides to wait for him, while organizing around Daniel what could be his “perfect world”.
Casual Day
Title: Casual day
Director: Max Lemcke
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 94 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Casual Day is a compan y practice imported from the USA. Every Friday the workers are asked to exchange their suits for more informal attire. Different companies plan their Casual Days in different ways. Some organize a trip to the countryside or activities intended to better personal relations between their workers to reduce stress and improve business performance. Ruy has always lived as he liked. Though clever, he’s gotten himself into a jam. Jose Antonio, his girlfriend’s father, has earmarked an important job for him in his company. He wants him to be his successor. At the age of 25, without actually having decided anything, he’s trapped. He’d like to say no to the job, to Jose Antonio, to his girlfriend, and to the Casual Day stuff. But it’s not easy to say no. What started out as a simple event, a weekend in the country, end up deciding the rest of his life.
The Blind Sunflowers
Title: Los girasoles ciegos
Director: José Luis Cuerda
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 95 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Each time Elena closes the door to her house, she locks away her secrets. At the same time as overcoming the post-war hardships, Elena puts on an outward show, along with her son Lorenzo, in order to hide the truth about her family: Elenita, her pregnant teenage daughter, has run away with her boyfriend Lalo, a youngster who has been on police lists for weeks. And her husband, Ricardo, lives hidden away in a hole drilled in the couples bedroom. Believing her to be a widow, Salvador, a young deacon who is considering leaving the priesthood after seeing the face of chaos and death, becomes obsessed with her, and goes as far as turning up at her house and harassing her. This prompts Ricardo to show himself in order to help his wife.
The Missing Lynx: Paws of the Run – animation
Title: El lince perdido
Director: Raúl García, Manuel Sicilia
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 97 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
The film follows the misadventures of a group of animals to escape from being captured by an unscrupulous hunter, hired by a millionaire.
Timecrimes
Title: Los cronocrimenes
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Year made: 2007
Format: cine, 35 mm
Duration: largometraje – 88 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
A man who travels accidentally back to the past and meets himself there. A naked girl in the midst of the forest. A weird guy with his face covered by a pink bandage. A disquieting mansion on the top of a hill. All of them pieces of an unpredictable jigsaw puzzle where terror, drama and suspense will lead to an unthinkable sort of crime. Who’s the murderer? Who’s the victim?
The One-Handed Trick
Title: El truco del manco
Director: Santiago A. Zannou
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 87 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
El truco del manco tells the tale of Enrique Heredia, El Cuajo, a non-Gypsy with Gypsy features who gets by as he can with walking difficulties caused by the cerebral palsy affecting half of his body. El Cuajo convinces his friend Adolfo, a young mulatto living in a commuter suburb with an alcoholic father and health problems, to set up a music studio and make a living with their shared talent and passion for Hip Hop. The actors are non-professional, selected at castings held on the outskirts of Madrid and Barcelona. Outstanding among them is Juan Manuel Montilla, nicknamed El Langui, leader of the Gypsy hip-hop group La Excepción, winner of an MTV Europe 2006 award as the best European group in the Spanish-language.
Empty Nest
Title: El nido vacío
Director: Daniel Burman
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 91 min
País producción Argentina
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Empty Nest, portrays the reconstruction of a marriage between a successful writer and a hyperactive woman. It tackles once again the subject of living together, only this time the protagonists are a husband and wife who have been married for many years and suddenly realize that they need to rebuild their relationship once their children left the family home for good to live their own lives.
Midsummer Dream – animation
Title: El sueño de una noche de San Juan
Director: Ángel de la Cruz , Manolo Gómez
Year made: 2005
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 98 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Legend tell us that one day in the year, during the night of San Juan, the humans can accede to the magical goblins world and the fairies, a place where the harmony reigns and in which the dreams become reality. Elena, an intelligent and not dreamer young person, does not believe in legend. Nevertheless, his father, Duke Teseo, is very ill and she would make any thing to give back the illusion to him. So, she initiates a trip in search of Titania, the Fairies queen. But the magical world, forgotten by the humans, no longer is what was. His king, Oberón, a fun-loving goblin dedicated wholesale spells.
The Zone
Title: La zona
Director: Rodrigo Plá
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 97 min
País producción México
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood’s borders.
Before The Fall
Title: 3 días
Director: F. Javier Gutiérrez
Year made: 2008
Format: cine, 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 93 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
What would you do if the world was going to end in 72 hours? A giant meteorite is about to collide with Earth. The planet is gripped by despair and chaos. The inhabitants of the little town of Laguna listen to the news in terror. Ale, a frustrated young man who lives with his mother and works at doing odd jobs, decides to spend his last days shut away, getting drunk and listening to his favorite music. But his plans change when he is forced to help his mother, Rosa, to protect his brother Tomás four children when Lucio, an ambiguous, disturbing stranger appears.
53 Winter Days
Title: 53 días de invierno
Director: Judith Colell
Year made: 2006
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 91 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Three people waiting for a bus one winter’s night look on as a dog is abandoned. Mila, a teacher on a year’s leave of absence after having been attacked by one of her students; Celso, a security guard, married, father of a son, who has serious trouble making ends meet, and who is on the point of learning that he’s about to be a father again, but this time to twins; and Valeria, a cello student with a murky family/love relationship. All three set out on a voyage leading them to confront their fears and frustrations and each of them to take an extreme, life-changing decision.
The Good Life
Title: La buena vida
Director: Andrés Wood
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 108 min
País producción Chile
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
It tells four stories of urban Santiago, Chile today, 2008. Teresa, Edmundo, Mario and Patricia Santiago are four people whose lives intersect amid horn-beeps, brakes and car alarms, but hardly touched on. Each pursues their dream: Teresa (Aline Kupenheim), a psychologist who seeks to save lives, Edmundo (Roberto Farias), a hairdresser who longs to have a car, Mario (Eduardo Paxeco) wants to come to the Philharmonic, and Patricia (Paula Sotelo) who survives. Each one yearns for something that seems to be affordable but they get what they don’t expect.
Red Bear
Title: Un oso rojo
Director: Adrián Caetano
Year made: 2002
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 94 min
País producción Argentina
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Oso (Bear) is released from prison after ten years. He was arrested, on his daughter’s first birthday, committing a robbery where he killed a policeman. His only desires are to reencounter his daughter and collect his share of the robbery, his ex-boss `El Turco’ never paid to his family. Oso is a man that knows hell and is used to it. He is a physical person, violent and not very fond of words. He has never gotten over the separation from his wife and daughter after having been convicted for armed robbery and homicide and sent to prison. Now he is out, to finally get his cut of the money and reunite with his family, or at least avenge the damage done.
The Good News
Title: La buena nueva
Director: Helena Taberna
Year made: 2008
Format: cine, 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 108 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Miguel is a young priest who takes over a parish in a Socialist small town at the time of the 1936 military uprising in Spain. Since the beginning of the war, the village is occupied by the rebel forces, while numerous executions follow in wake of the occupation. In his struggle to defend the victims of political retaliation, Miguel will stand up against the hierarchy of the church and the military and will put his life at risk. His friendship with Margari, the local schoolmistress whose husband has been murdered at the outbreak of the war, becomes a haven to him. His relationship with the woman will somehow counter the young priest’s disillusionment and become his only foothold along a road which he must walk on his own.
Viridiana
Title: Viridiana
Director: Luis Buñuel
Year made: 1961
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 90 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Viridiana is a virtuous young woman living in a convent in Spain and about to take her vows as a nun, when she is urged by her superior to visit her closest living relative, the widowed Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), at his estate. The lonely Don Jaime asks Viridiana to oblige him by trying on his deceased wife’s wedding gown, and the young niece does so. Later, the aroused Don Jaime drugs Viridiana, planning to ravish her while she is unconscious. Though he falters, he later commits suicide out of guilt and shame and Viridiana inherits the estate along with Don Jaime’s prodigal and pragmatic son, Jorge.
1961: Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or.
The Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Title: Los amantes del círculo polar
Director: Julio Medem
Year made: 1998
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 112 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Otto and Ana are kids when they meet each other. Their names are palindromes. They meet by chance, people are related by chance. Yet, their destiny cannot be denied. A story of circular lives, with circular names, and a circular place where the day never ends in the midnight sun. There are things that never end, and Love is one of them.
Return to Hansala
Title: Retorno a Hansala
Director: Chus Gutiérrez
Year made: 2008
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 95 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
A boat carrying a group of illegal immigrants sinks, leaving a dozen dead bodies lying on a Spanish beach. Martín -a man nearing his forties and the father of a twelve-year-old girl- has recently separated from his wife. He runs a funeral parlour in Algeciras and is beset by numerous economic and legal problems. After receiving a call from the Guardia Civil, he drives to the scene of the tragedy and, while collecting the dead bodies, he notices that one of them has a tight Ust gripping a scrap of paper. The latter contains a telephone number. Back in his ofUce, Martin calls that number and is answered at the other end of the line by Leila, a Morroccan woman who works at the wholesale food market in Málaga. Both Martin and Leila will embark together in an unexpected journey.
Just Walking
Title: Sólo quiero caminar
Director: Agustín Díaz Yanes
Year made: 2008
Format: cine, 35mm
Duration: largometraje – 130 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Aurora is serving a prison sentence for a raid that went pear-shaped. Her accomplices – Ana, Gloria and Paloma – were not caught. Life is certainly no picnic for these for women. Aurora’s sister Ana works as a prostitute and longs to have more money. This is why she accepts an offer of marriage from Félix, a filthy rich but brutal Mexican drug dealer who adores her. Ana goes to live in Mexico with her husband. Shortly afterwards, Gloria receives a phone call from Ana in Mexico asking Gloria to visit her there. Her husband’s business is going well, she says, and she thinks the girlfriends might be able to make something of their lives there. Aurora is released from prison and is met by Paloma. The two women have a plane to catch – from Madrid to Mexico City. At the other end, Ana and Gloria are already waiting for them. Ana is unhappy with her new life. Her husband’s alcoholic binges and violent outbursts have made her realise that the drug lord has trapped her in a golden cage. Things can’t go on like this any more, Ana says. And so she’s has hatched a plot which should put them in possession of a large amount of money and help Ana take her revenge. This is the real reason for bringing her girlfriends to Mexico. Together the women set about preparing what could be their lucky strike.
Amanece, que no es poco
Title: Amanece, que no es poco
Director: José Luis Cuerda
Year made: 1988
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 110 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Teodoro is a Spanish engineer who works as a professor at the University of Oklahoma, USA, and returns to Spain to enjoy a sabbatical year. Upon arriving he discovers that Jimmy, his father, has killed his mother. His father bought him a motorcycle with sidecar to compensate him for the loss. Together they arrive at a remote town in the mountain where they encountered strange people: an acolyte on the verge of raising himself body and soul to heaven, and a woman who has buried a man in her orchard.
The Spirit of the Beehive
Title: El espiritu de la colmena
Director: Víctor Erice
Year made: 1973
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 97 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl in a rural Spanish hamlet is traumatized after a traveling projectionist screens a print of James Whale’s 1931 “Frankenstein” for the village. The youngster is profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers. She questions her sister about the profundities of life and death and believes her older sibling when she tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. When a Loyalist soldier, a fugitive from Franco’s victorious army, hides out in the barn, Ana crosses from reality into a fantasy world of her own.
The Pope’s Toilet
Title: El baño del Papa
Director: Enrique Fernández y César Charlone
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 90 min
País producción Uruguay
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Following a visit by Juan Pablo II to a small border town in Uruguay, the locals dream about their needs being fulfilled and the money that will hopefully flow in their direction.
Anger
Title: Rabia
Director: Oscar Cárdenas
Year made: 2006
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 74 min
País producción Chile
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Camila Sepúlveda has been unemployed for over a year. Now she is trying to get a job as a secretary. Through six chapters and brief interviews we will find out what this long unemployment time has meant to her. Everywhere Camila goes for a job interview, she will listen to other unemployed women’s points of view and experiences. She knows that after all this time of being unemployed she will never be the same person again.
The Holy Innocents
Title: Los santos inocentes
Director: Mario Camus
Year made: 1984
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 107 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Extremadura, Spain in the 60s. People from a very poor family work in the country, at the service of a rich family of landowners. Paco and his wife Régula are very poor. They work as tenant farmers for a very wealthy landowner. They have 3 children who can not got to school because the master “needs” their work. When Regula’s brother is fired from where he has worked for 61 years, he settles down at their little place.
Blue Eyelids
Title: Párpados azules
Director: Ernesto Contreras
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 98 min
País producción Mexico
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Marina wins a paradise vacation for two, but when she realizes that she has no one to bring along, she decides to invite a stranger named Victor. The pair soon discovers that true love depends more on compatibility rather than idyllic scenery.
The Devil’s Point
Title: La punta del diablo
Director: Marcelo Paván
Year made: 2006
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 90 min
País producción Argentina
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
A surgeon from Buenos Aires, wearied by personal problems and the endless cycle of work, leaves for a week’s skiing vacation in the south. Instead, on impulse, he follows a young hitchhiker to a small fishing village, Devil’s Point, in the north, on the coast of Uruguay. He makes fleeting acquaintance with some of the villagers, and learns that “the only thing to do in winter is to wait for summer”.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Title: Átame!
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Year made: 1989
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 97 min
País producción España
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
Antonio Banderas plays Ricky, an orphan who spent most of his youth escaping and returning to the orphanage. Upon his release, he goes to find B-movie actres Marina and kidnaps her in her own home. Ricky is desperate to get Marina to love him, although he keeps her tied up while he goes out to buy drug for her. The plot centres around these two and Marina’s sister, Lola, who finds her tied to Lola’s bed and they make a dash to escape.
A Stray Girlfriend
Title: Una novia errante
Director: Ana Katz
Year made: 2007
Format: DVD
Duration: largometraje – 84 min
País producción Argentina
Versión originalEspañol
SubtituladoInglés
A romantic holiday has left Ines all alone. She gets off a bus where she has been constantly squabbling with her boyfriend Miguel, and is puzzled when the bus pulls away with Miguel still on it. Ines finds she may have gotten off the bus a bit early since she has to walk some distance to get to the resort where they booked a room, so at first she figures that’s why Miguel didn’t step down. She waited in vain since no boyfriend arrived to the resort where they were supposed to enjoy their vacation. The story revolves around Ines’ initial self-deception, tears and uncertainty, and gradual resignation to a situation over which she has no control.
Tags: film festival, Instituto Cervantes
