Recent Spanish cinema 2020 in Miami

This year, Los Angeles and Miami Spanish Film series join forces to co-host and present a combined special edition of Recent Spanish Cinema, a both log-in and drive-in event that will take place virtually and physically, tailored to fit the current situation.

The Recent Spanish Cinema Series is an initiative of the Spanish Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), a branch of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport devoted to preserving, fostering, and promoting the Spanish filmmaking and audiovisual sectors, with the American Cinematheque, a non-profit cultural organization in the heart of Hollywood dedicated to public presentation of films of yesterday and today beyond the scope of the big, mainstream productions and EGEDA US, the US- based Iberoamerican Audiovisual Producers’ Association who serves as a link between the U.S. Film industry and those of Spain and Latin America.

Virtual screenings

The endless trench

• Watch now.
• Original title: La trinchera infinita.
• Directed by Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga, Spain, 2019, 147 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Higinio (Antonio de la Torre) and Rosa (Belen Cuesta) have only been married for a few months when the Spanish Civil War breaks out. Higinio has been marked for execution and Rosa is determined to save her husband’s life by hiding him in their home. After the fascists win the conflict, Higinio must remain in hiding. This award-winning film explores the fear and love that lead Higinio to remain trapped in his own home for more than 30 years.

An outstanding and hypnotic film, claustrophobic, anguishing, complex, never tedious…

— Carlos Boyero, El País

The Europeans

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: Los europeos.
• Directed by Víctor García León, Spain, 2020, 89 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

This adaptation of the eponymous novel by Rafael Azcona, is set in the late 1950s during Spain’s dictatorship. The film follows Miguel (Raúl Arévalo), a provincial draftsman, and Antonio (Juan Diego Botto), the well-off son of an architect, as they escape the conservatism of the Spanish mainland for the sun-kissed shores of Ibiza, lured by the illusion of freedom and the promise of sexually liberated European women. The two young men join an eclectic community of bohemian vacationers and partygoers, but their stay on the bucolic island is not as carefree as they had planned. As Miguel begins to fall in love with the Parisian Odette (Stéphane Caillard), both must face moral and existential dilemmas.

Sharp, intelligent, comic, and tragic…

— Begoña Piña, Elpublico.es

The innocence

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: La inocencia.
• Directed by Lucía Alemany, Spain, 2019, 92 minutes, in Catalan and Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Lis (Carmen Arrufat) is a teenager who dreams of leaving behind her small Catalan town and moving to Barcelona to become a performer. During the languid summer, Lis staves off boredom by partying with her friends and dating an older boy (Joel Bosqued). She must keep the relationship secret from her conservative parents, but this is no easy task with the town’s lack of privacy and gossiping neighbors. As the summer comes to a close and Lis receives an unexpected surprise, she faces the difficult decision of how to come clean to her parents.

There are few directorial debuts that are so sincere, so impulsive, so direct.

— Luis Martínez, El Mundo

Instant love

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: Amor en polvo.
• Directed by Juanjo Moscardó and Suso Imbernón, Spain, 2020, 79 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Feeling trapped in a sexless marriage, Pablo (Enrique Arce) and Blanca (Lorena López) decide to try out swinging as a way to rekindle their romance. The couple arranges to meet at a bar with two of their single friends, Mia (Macarena Gómez) and Lucas (Luis Miguel Seguí), but end up missing the date when they get caught up in a heated argument that leads them to reconsider everything that they had believed about sex, love and married life. Meanwhile at the bar, Mia and Lucas flirt and begin to fall in love. This romantic comedy follows the two couples over the course of the night as one weathers a crisis and the other ignites a new flame.

Macarena Gómez shines in her role as a liberated woman.

— Alfonso Rivera, Cineuropa

The invisible

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: Invisibles.
• Directed by Gracia Querejeta, Spain, 2020, 84 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Elsa (Emma Suárez), Julia (Adriana Ozores), and Amelia (Nathalie Poza) are three women in their fifties, who meet every week to exercise together in a park. On these brisk morning walks, the friends discuss their personal lives and careers, their aspirations, and their deepest secrets. Centering on the witty dialogue and scathing observations of these aging women, the film explores their shared frustrations in a society in which mature women seemingly become invisible.

…the film turns into a cry against discrimination, a demand for attention from the egotistical and absurd system that we’re living in, and a beautiful ode to friendship.

— Alfonso Rivera, Cineuropa

Mother

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: Madre.
• Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Spain, 2019, 129 minutes, in Spanish and French with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Mother is an expansion of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s 2017 Oscar-nominated short, in which an anguished mother loses her six-year-old son on a beach. The feature film picks up the story ten years after the boy’s disappearance and follows the mother, Elena (Marta Nieto), who now lives in the French coastal town where her son went missing. The film probes the emotional depths of grief as Elena lives out a hollow existence haunted by the ghost of her son. Perhaps reminding the woman of her boy, an adolescent tourist, Jean (Jules Porier), catches her interest. The gangly Jean seems drawn to Elena as well. Much of what passes between the two remains unspoken, and their growing bond results in tension and unease for those around them.

In a quiet, tremulous drama short on firm answers, Sorogoyen’s directorial technique is … boldly assertive.

— Guy Lodge, Variety

Rosa’s wedding

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: La boda de Rosa.
• Directed by Icíar Bollaín, Spain, 2020, 97 minutes, in Spanish, English and French with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

About to turn 45, Rosa (Candela Peña) realizes that she has always lived by and for others and decides to press the nuclear button, send everything away and take charge of her life. But first, she wants to embark on a very special commitment: a marriage to herself. She will soon discover that her father, her brothers and her daughter have other plans, and that changing your life is not so easy if it is not in the family script. Getting married, even to herself, is going to be the hardest thing she’s ever done.

Schoolgirls

• From October 22 at 9 am to October 29 at 11:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• Original title: Las niñas.
• Directed by Pilar Palomero, Spain, 2020, 100 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Pilar Palomero’s award-winning directorial debut is a coming-of-age story set in a provincial Spanish city in the early 1990s. Celia (Andrea Fandos) is an introverted Catholic schoolgirl who lives with her widowed mother (Natalia de Molina). When a new classmate from Barcelona, Brisa (Zoe Arnao), brings with her the winds of change from the big city, Celia hurls herself into adolescence and discovers that the world is much bigger than her conservative upbringing has prepared her for.

The new unexpected gem of Spanish cinema … one of the most outstanding and exciting Spanish films in the last few years…

— Marta Medina, El Confidencial

Drive-in screening

The Day of the Beast

• On October 29 at 7:30 pm. Buy tickets.
• At 3Feo Drive-in at The Fair, 10901 SW 24th St, Miami, FL 33165. Closing night.
• Original title: El Día de la Bestia.
• Directed by Álex de la Iglesia, Spain / Italy, 99 minutes, in Spanish and Italian with English subtitles. Watch trailer.

Two-thousand years after the birth of Christ, the Anti-Christ is about to be born –unless Father Ángel Berriartúa (Álex Angulo) can stop it. The Basque priest believes he can prevent the apocalypse by infiltrating the ranks of the devil, though that will require him to trade in his pious life for one of non-stop sin. Aided by a heavy metal fan (Santiago Segura) and an occult TV show host (Armando De Razza), Ángel raises hell through Madrid as Christmas Eve –and the possible end of the world– approaches in Álex de la Iglesia’s cult classic.

Online discussions

RSC 2020 Talent Panel

• On October 24 at 11 am L.A. / 2 pm Miami / 8 pm Madrid. RSVP.
• Runtime: 60 minutes

This live Zoom discussion with this year’s filmmakers include The Invisible director Gracia Querejeta, Schoolgirls director Pilar Palomero, and Instant Love star Luis Miguel Segui. Additional panelists to be announced.

RSC 2020 Industry Panel

• On October 25 at 11 am L.A. / 2 pm Miami / 8 pm Madrid. RSVP.
• Runtime: 60 minutes

This live Zoom panel of industry leaders will discuss the current state of Ibero-American cinema in the U.S., the latest on Ibero-American productions and the promotion of films in Spanish at an international level, the different strategies that the film industries in the U.S., Latin America and Spain have to deal with COVID-19, as well as how Hollywood’s perception of the Ibero-American film industry aligns with reality.

Moderated by Ximena Urrutia, Director of FICG in LA. Panelists include Paul Hudson of Outsider Pictures, Mexican actor and filmmaker Humberto Busto, casting director Carla Hool, Schoolgirls producer Valérie Delpierre, ICAA marketing director Tito Rodriguez and EGEDA US & Premios Platino Executive Director Elvi Cano. Additional panelists to be confirmed.