L.A. OLA – Spanish Contemporary Showcase

L.A. OLA is a showcase of the most outstanding and innovative independent contemporary films from Spain in the city of L.A.

L.A. OLA – Spanish Contemporary Cinema Showcase aims to highlight the innovative approaches Spanish Contemporary films are taking guided by a groundbreaking new generation of filmmakers. Despite having been recognized at the most prestigious international film festivals, the directors of this Spanish New Wave lacked a specific platform to showcase their work in Los Angeles. The second edition will open on May 20 at the Echo Park Film Center and the venue Non-Plus-Ultra. The closing night will be on May 22 at the Egyptian Theater.

Opening night at the Echo Park Film Center will showcase The Money Complex: Der Geldkomplex directed by Juan Rodrigáñez and premiered at Berlin Film Festival. The closing night at the Egyptian the selected movie will screen Locarno’s Special Jury Prize Dead Slow Ahead, directed by Mauro Herce. Additionally, the panel entitled How to sell your movie: new marketing tools for a Guerrilla campaign will be held at the Egyptian Theater on May 22. Another addition for this year is the inclusion of a Short Film Program curated by CurtoCircuito International Film Festival. Short films will be screen prior to each feature.

Africa 815

• On Friday, May 20 at 5 pm at Non-Plus-Ultra, 310 Burns Ave., Los Angeles, 90029.
• Directed by Pilar Monsell, Spain, 2014, 66 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
• Preceded by the short film To Be and to Come Back by Xacio Baño.

Going in depth into her father’s photo archive and diaries about his experience during the military service at the Sahara spanish colony in 1964, Pilar spots the lost paradise where he always would try to come back. In the eighties and nineties, after the failure of his family project, Manuel Monsell will start to traveling to the Maghreb. Again with his photo camera, he will run after the beauty of some portraits which could move him to the place of his dreams. But all these trips reveal much more about the place of departure than about the place of destination. Romantic love, independence and family compose a stage of a refuge that getting itself broken, it commit ourselves to ask not only about our more sincere desires but also about the need of rethinking the sense of these old words.

The Money Complex: Der Geldkomplex

• Opening screening on Friday, May 20 at 8 pm at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90026. Opening cocktail from 9:30 pm to 11 pm.
• Directed by Juan Rodrigáñez, Spain, 2015, 78 minutes. In Spanish, German and English with English subtitles.
• Preceded by the short film The Breeze by Blanca Camell Galí and José López Pizarro.

The son of Rafael arrives to the family’s country property in the south of Spain to introduce his girlfriend and announce their wedding plans. In the villa also live Rafael’s best friends: Francisca, Henry, Lucas and Domingo, all them suffering from a money complex.

La décima carta

• On Saturday, May 21 at 5 pm at Non-Plus-Ultra, 310 Burns Ave., Los Angeles, 90029.
• Directed by Virginia García del Pino, Spain, 2014, 65 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
• Preceded by the short film 6Lola6 by Tomás Peña.

In 1966, Basilio Martín Patino sent Berta nine letters. 50 years later, Virginia García del Pino tries to write the tenth. A letter shared between her and Basilio Martín Patino, the portrait of a leaked identity that derives from Patino’s precept that one should, “Forget all of one’s obligations,” is what remains of that rebellious student who wrote to Berta in 1966 and the start of his brilliant career as a filmmaker.

Androids Dream

• On Saturday, May 21 at 8 pm at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90026.
• Directed by Ion de Sosa, Spain, 2014, 61 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
• Masterclass with director Virginia García del Pino at Non plus Ultra + screening of the feature Nine Letters to Bertha by Basilio Marín Patino at 1 pm.
• Preceded by the short film Neither God nor Santa María by Samuel M. Delgado & Helena Giró.

It is the year 2052, on Earth, in Spain, and the final days of almost everything. The city is a string of abandoned construction sites. Everyday there are fewer people and not all of them are human. A sheep costs four and a half million pesetas and you have to spend a lot of bullets to pay for one.

Dead Slow Ahead

• Closing night on Sunday May 22 at 7:30 pm at Egyptian Theater, Steven Spielberg Room, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, CA 90028. Co-presented by Los Angeles Filmforum.
• Directed by Mauro Herce, Spain, 2015, 74 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
• Industry panel: How to seel your movie: new marketing tools for a Guerrilla campaign, from 4 pm to 5 pm. Closing party at 9:30 pm.
• Preceded by the short film We All Love the Seashore by Keina Espiñeira.

The freighter Fair Lady crosses the ocean. The hypnotic rhythm of its gears reveals the continuous movement of machinery devouring its workers: the last gestures of the old sailors’ trade disappearing under the mechanic and impersonal pace of 21st century neocapitalism. Perhaps it is a boat adrift, or maybe just the last example of an endangered species. Although we don’t know it, the engines are still running, unstoppable.