My neighbourthood cinema, The Royal Cinema, presents the Festival Of New Spanish Cinema beginning this week. This 11-city touring festival will run for every Wednesday for five weeks at the Royal, starting on February 26th.
Now in its sixth year, and still as fresh as ever, North America’s leading showcase of Spanish cinema comes to Toronto for the first time, allowing audiences to discover the latest and most exciting films from Spain. The festival arrives after its presentation in Ottawa, Houston, Vancouver and Portland, and will travel to Seattle, Miami, Washington, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Chicago over the next few months.
“We have hand-picked the best films Spain has to offer. From our favorite directors such as Cesc Gay and Alberto Rodríguez, to impressive indie feature by avant garde directors Jonás Trueba and Juan Cavestany, these films are not to be missed… We have an array of genres from surreally-Buñuelinean stories to thrillers, romantic comedies and social charge features.” – Marta Sanchez, founder of Pragda and the main organizer of this important event.
The festival will spotlight five hits from Spain:
A GUN IN EACH HAND / UNA PISTOLA EN CADA MANO
Wednesday, February 26th 7:00 pm
Dir. CESC GAY
With Ricardo Darín, Luis Tosar, Javier Cámara, Eduardo Noriega, and more
Eight men in their 40s are caught up in everyday situations that reveal their main conflict: a masculine identity crisis. Their behavior forms a mosaic of emotions men usually don’t reveal. J. is depressed and is the perfect victim for psychoanalysis. E. has lost everything and lives with his mother and his cat. S. is attempting to win his ex-wife back. With the help of drugs, G. is trying to understand why his wife is having an affair. The rest of their friends are doing their best with similar catastrophes.
THE WISHFUL THINKERS / LOS ILUSOS
Wednesday, March 5th 6:45 pm
Dir. JONÁS TRUEBA
With Francesco Carril, Aura Garrido, Mikele Urroz, Vito Sanz, lsabelle Stoffel, Luis Miguel Madrid
This is the life of dreamy filmmaker Leon, in between projects – a sort of limbo with an endless postponing of things, low-key frustration, lover’s quarrels, conversations, coffees, drunkenness, classes, concerts and walks…
UNIT 7 / GRUPO 7
Wednesday March 12th 6:45 pm
Dir. ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ
With Antonio de la Torre, Mario Casas and Inma Cuesta
A group of renegade cops decides to take the law into their own hands in this gritty thriller. The drug problem in Seville, Spain is spiraling out of control as the city prepares to host the 1992 World Exposition. With pressure mounting to clean up the city, an overworked group of cops starts writing their own rules. Selling dope for cash and information, padding their bank accounts and arrest records, they become local celebrities, poster boys for a new tough-on-crime era in Seville. But their brutal tactics draw press attention and the local drug lords secretly plot their revenge.
PEOPLE IN PLACES / GENTE EN SITIOS
Wednesday March 19th 6:45 pm
Dir. JUAN CAVESTANY
With Ernesto Alterio, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arévalo, Enric Benavent
Working with the tiniest of micro-budgets, playwright and independent filmmaker Juan Cavestany stages a series of bizarre, Buñuelian scenarios that offer a cracked view of contemporary Spain in the wake of the economic crisis. To uncover the strange in the ordinary, the unsettling in the everyday: this is the mark of imaginative wizardry that can be found in abundance in People In Places. Moving from one nondescript location to the next, a theme, or perhaps more of an undercurrent, emerges — until the fiercely political nature of the film becomes apparent.
LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED /
VIVIR ES FACIL CON LOS OJOS CERRADOS
Wednesday, March 26th 6:45 pm
Dir. DAVID TRUEBA
With Javier Cámara, Natalia de Molina, Francesc Colomer
Beatles fans will recognize the title, as lyrics from the song Strawberry Fields Forever. John Lennon wrote it in 1966, while in southern Spain playing a minor character in Richard Lester’s anti-war movie How I Won The War. This forms the backdrop of David Trueba’s film about Antonio, a Spanish school teacher who is also an avid Beatles fan. When he learns that Lennon is filming in Almeria, he sets out to meet him… Lennon’s words take on special significance in this charming road movie set in Franco’s Spain.
Certainly an impressive list of films, filmmakers, and stars in this festival lineup. Looks I’ll be spending several nights at my neighbourhood cinema in the next few weeks… Nos vemos!
All films will be screened with English subtitles. Screenings take place at The Royal cinema, starting this week, Wednesday, February 26th. Tickets range from $8 (students) to $10 (adults). Tickets on sale at theatre’s box office or online at theroyal.to.
