THIS November, Instituto Cervantes and Festival de Sevilla, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, will treat Filipino film buffs to the “new cinephilias online,” a series of movies considered as “the other Spanish cinema”—a label with which the generation who started working with cinema at the dawn of the 21st century was named.
The film cycles will be shown through the Instituto Cervantes channel on the Vimeo platform and is freely accessible for 48 hours from their screening date and time. The lineup is composed of award-winning films such as the documentary Niñato (Kid), directed by Adrián Orr and was awarded Best Film during the 19th Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, as well as two drama feature films: Ver a una mujer (To See a Woman) by Mònica Rovira, and A estación violenta (The Wild Season) by Anxos Fazáns.
Another documentary, Idrissa, crònica d´una mort qualsevol (Idrissa, Chronicle of an Ordinary Death) megged by Xavier Artigas, and Xapo Ortega, nominated to the XII Gaudi Awards and the 15th Seville European Film Festival, complete the film cycle.
The film cycle will kick-off on November 7, Saturday at 3 a.m. in Manila (November 6, Friday at 8 p.m. in Madrid), with the screening of Niñato, available for 48 hours until Monday, November 9. It focuses on the particular family of David Ransanz, a young and jobless rapper from the suburbs of Madrid who raises a three-year-old while living in his mother’s house after fleeing from gruesomeness, poignancy and emotional trap. Orr draws a moving and close portrait of this “kid” who tries to resist a monotonous and a not-so encouraging situation while still holding on to his musical dreams.
The cycle will continue on November 14, again at 3 a.m. Manila time, with Ver a una mujer. It is an intimate, poetic and beautiful film about the relationship between the director (Mónica) and her first female love, Sarai. The play of textures, lights and shadows work as the perfect metaphor for ineffable love, dependency and honesty, which constitutes a sublime exercise of introspection and exorcism in which a woman faces the demons of her life as a couple.
A estación violenta will be shown on November 21 at the same screening time. This dazzling debut of Fazáns, adapted from the homonymous novel by Manuel Jabois, showcases life in a city where there is no horizon other than that of an unhappy past and that of a lost generation. It is a story of silent loves, broken complicities, and mutual mistrust.
Finally, the well-crafted documentary of Artigas and Ortega, Idrissa… (2019) will conclude the cavalcade on November 28. The film depicts how the Spanish legal system has made it nearly impossible to investigate the death of a 21-year-old Guinean migrant at the Foreigners Internment Center of Barcelona. The directors are not just telling a real-life story, but conveying the effective use of cinema as a tool for action and change.
The films, presented by Instituto Cervantes and in collaboration with the Seville European Film Festival of Spain and the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, will be in Spanish with English subtitles. For further information and updates on the film series, visit https://manila.cervantes.es or the Instituto Cervantes’ Facebook page: www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila.