The FESTIVAL OF NEW SPANISH CINEMA is back! And we’re sure you will find in its program the kind of stories you were looking for:  Double agents! Awkward family gatherings! Crazy and boozy nights gone wrong! Unconventional romances! This and much more in your own city or very close, who can resist such a tempting offer?

From September to November 2010 the third edition of this traveling Festival will bring the latest works of Spanish filmmakers to eight cities throughout U.S. and Canada: stunning debuts (Me Too, Three Days with the Family) coincide with major works of renowned authors (The Island Inside, After) in a program which celebrates the diversity and vitality of contemporary Spanish Cinema. The goal of the FESTIVAL OF NEW SPANISH CINEMA tour is presenting to audiences from North America the finest offbeat, independent and artistically-inspired Spanish films from all genres: narrative, experimental, and animation.

Check our website to keep you updated with the final dates and program, and see when we’re coming your way! We’ll be sure to bring the charm and hospitality, and share our Spanish extravaganza with you.
 

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

The Festival is far more than movie screenings; there will be:
- Panel discussions, Q&A sessions and Master classes with the filmmakers
- Short Films  and plenty of videos available online
- Cutting-edge media exhibits
- And, of course, popular opening night parties!

WHERE AND WHEN?

Festival of New Spanish Cinema 2010

Ottawa: Auditorium, Library and Archives
September 2-6

Seattle: SIFF Cinema
September 23-27

Portland: NW Film Center
October 8-13

San Juan (Puerto Rico): San Juan Int’l Film Festival
October 13-20

Houston: Rice Cinemas
October 15-18

Miami: MDC’s Tower Theater
October 22-28

Chicago: TBA
November

San Francisco: TBA
November

Washington: TBA

With: Alberto San Juan, Cristina Marcos, Candela Peña and Geraldine Chaplin.
Siblings Martin (Alberto San Juan), Gracia (Cristina Marcos) and Coral (Candela Peña) are the children of a schizophrenic. The sudden death of their father forces them to leave the inner island which isolates them from their loved ones, from their dreams … and from being themselves.

A superb psicodrama by the camp filmmaker combo Dunia Ayaso and Félix Sabroso (Rated X, Sorry Darling, but Lucas Loved Me), with kick ass performances by the most reknowed independent actors working today.

"If you were able to imagine The fall of the house of Usher told through a series of paintings by Edward Hopper, the result might resemble The Island Inside".
EL PAIS

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With: Manuel Martínez, Marieta Orozco and Martha Carbonell.
A hauntingly beautiful and lyrical tale, Adan Aliaga’s (director of multiawarded documentary My Grandmother’s House) debut feature is a thoughtful journey into the intertwining realms of faith and character.

The story is adapted from Lorenzo Mattotti and Claudio Piersanti’s acclaimed comic, and told through a hulking, gentle giant of a man, Bruno (played by Spanish shotput champion Manuel Martinez), whose sad life is on a downward spiral. He wakes up one morning bleeding from mysterious wounds on his hands, which he questions from a purely physical viewpoint, but which others see as divine signature. Hounded, Bruno flees the city and wanders through the countryside until he finds a traveling fair and falls in love.  Ultimately, Bruno’s journey is one of universal ideas, which lead us to our own, larger than life questions—of love, expectation, and redemption.

"A daring work with references to Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini...a film as refreshing as it is interesting."
EL PAIS, Jordi Minguell

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With: Tristán Ulloa, Guillermo Toledo and Blanca Romero.
Manuel (Tristán Ulloa), Ana (Blanca Romero) and Julio (Guillermo Toledo), friends since adolescence in their mid-thirties, reunite for a boozy dinner that turns into a clubbing, dancing, drugging free-for-all. As their trip to the heart of the night unfolds, old attractions and resentments rise to the surface.  With After, filmmaker Alberto Rodríguez (7 Virgins) compellingly portrays is three people fervently, desperately seeking connection.

Click HERE for more information. To watch a preview CLICK.

With: Nausicaa Bonnín, Eduard Fernández, Ramón Fontseré.
In one of the most impressive Spanish debut features of the last years, Three days with the family tells the story of Léa (Nausicaa Bonnín), a 21-year-old girl who returns home to attend her grandfather’s funeral. Though Lea’s parents have long been separated, her mother reappears for the funeral to keep up appearances. Lea’s father Josep Maria, the son of deceased patriarch Pere, is a sensitive man who listens to impassioned opera but is emotionally so withdrawn that he can’t get close to his daughter. Her French mother Joelle drinks to hide her sadness. Not surprisingly, Lea’s a loner and distraught by all the family stress; on top of everything else, her boyfriend is just breaking up with her.

Often hilarious, this amusing semi-autobiographical film by 28-years-old Spanish director Mar Coll, proffers an observant study of rituals of grief in a bourgeois household where little can be aired openly and hypocrisy rules. The outstanding ensemble casted film won three awards at the Malaga Spanish Film Festival and the unavoidable Goya (Spanish Academy Award) to the Best New Director.

Click HERE for more information. To watch a preview CLICK.

The Nazis called him Alaric. The British called him Garbo. Born in Spain, Juan Pujol (his true name) was one of the most successful double agents in history.

Director Edmon Roch utilizes a fascinating mixture of fictional reconstruction, archive footage and film extracts to tell the unknown and real story of the Spaniard Joan Pujol Garcia, who fought on both sides in two wars without ever having held a weapon. The peak of his career came in 1944, when he succeeded in diverting German defense forces to Calais while the Allied landings were taking place in Normandy, thus averting considerable bloodshed. Rumor had it he died in 1949 after contracting malaria in Angola—until he was discovered more than 30 years later living a new life, yet again, in Venezuela. Goya award (Spanish Academy Award) as Best Documentary.

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With: Lola Dueñas, Pablo Pineda.
Me Too! is the film of the year. A delightful, offbeat comedy-drama that tells an unusual love story, which challenges society’s deeply ingrained prejudices. Daniel (Pablo Pineda) and Nuria (Lola Dueñas- Volver, Broken Embraces, The Sea Inside ) work together and they’re friends. Daniel is in love with Nuria, but she’s reluctant to go any further.  Touching, funny and sexy, this unconventional romantic comedy, directed by debutants Pastor and Naharro, talks openly about the desires and sexual needs of people with disabilities in a way not seen before on screen.

Gathering awards everywhere where it goes, including San Sebastián International Film Festival, Silver Seashell Award for Best Actor and Best Actress, 2 Goya Awards: Best Actress and Best Original Song, Rotterdam Film Festival: Audience Award and Sundance Film Festival 2010: Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, this film will put you in an entertaining emotional roller-coaster. Me Too! is an Olive Films Release in the United States and Canada (www.OliveFilms.com).

"An engaging, rough-edged, a moving crowd-pleaser."
TRIBUNE MAGAZINE, Neil Young

 Click HERE for more information. To watch a preview CLICK.

With: Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Martina García and Álex Brendemühl.
Prized with the Special Jury Prize at Toronto International Film Festival, the film counts with a wise cast-de-luxe, including Concha Velasco, Xabier Elorriaga, Álex BrendeMühl, Icíar Bollaín and protagonist Gustavo Sánchez-Parra and Martina García.

An immigrant couple fall in love in a hostile milieu. Jose Maria, a construction worker, kills his foreman, and hides for a long time at the mansion where his girlfriend Rosa serves as a maid. In his debut feature film, Sebastian Cordero turns a social commentary about immigration into a terrifying and claustrophobical thriller.

"Cordero starts out conveying the day-in-a-life naturalism of a Ken Loach film before venturing into decidedly Hitchcockian territory"
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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With: Daniel Fanego, Arturo Goetz and Bárbara Lennie.
Enfant-terrible and multidisciplinar artist Isaki Lacuesta, author of one of the recent masterpieces of Spanish cinema, La leyenda del tiempo, always pays attentive to the mutual intoxications between reality and fiction, between fact and myth.

Thought-provoking, always inspiring thriller, the film is about whether or not it’s best to remain quiet about the past. It follows an exiled activist’s return to Argentina after 30 years to search for the body of a friend who died in combat with the military in the jungle. The clandestine excavations resurface old rivalries and some well-kept secrets.

Fipresci International Critics’ Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival.

"Silence speaks louder than words in Isaki Lacuesta’s hushed,
intense and admirable The Damned."
VARIETY, Jonathan Holland
 

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