INSTITUTO Cervantes is set to open the 14th edition of Pelicula-Pelikula, a collection of 30 of the best of contemporary Spanish films.
To open on October 8 at Greenbelt 3 in Makati City, the film festival will run for 11 days and will be graced by Spanish journalist Ramón Vilaró, who will present his 2014 documentary De aliados a masacrados, and Czech filmmaker Lenka Kny, who will introduce his 2013 comedy film Milagro en Praga.
Vilaró’s documentary talks about how the Filipino-Spanish population of Manila was decimated by the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the World War II. Meanwhile, Kny’s film is about a Mexican and a Czech family that crossed paths in Prague during the Christmas holidays.
Kny’s film is copresented with the Mexican and the Czech Republic embassies. The director will conduct an open forum after the screening of the film.
Aside from the two films, this year’s lineup includes movies from several genres, ranging from romance and comedy (Ocho Apellidos Vascos, Tres Bodas de Más and Gente en Sitios) to documentary (Paco de Lucía, La Plaga), suspense (Relatos Salvajes) and drama (Hermosa Juventud, Artico).
The film festival will also have a second run in Intramuros, from October 19 to 25, that will be accompanied by an exhibit of Spanish film posters at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Dubbed as Spanish Cinema in 20 Posters, the exhibit will let visitors explore Spanish cinema through posters from the 1953 film Bienvenido Míster Marshall to the 2012 film Blancanieves.
It aims to encourage visitors to reflect on the history of Spanish films and to be inspired by the beauty of the graphics that illuminate the visual style of its different cinematic periods.
Through the assistance of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), the film festival will also be showcased in Baguio, Davao, Iloilo and Zamboanga.
Since its start in 2002, the film festival has been an annual attraction at the Ayala Cinemas, bringing the best of Spanish and Latin-American cinema to Filipino audiences. Pelicula-Pelikula is a combination of the Spanish word película, which means film, and its Tagalog derivation pelikula, echoing the cultural ties shared by Spain and the Philippines. By putting the two words together, it highlights the unique characteristics of the two-week event, which represents the biggest Spanish film festival in Asia.
The film festival is being made possible with the assistance of the Embassy of Spain-Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, FDCP, and the Intramuros Administration.