CINEART Spain: Madrid, 1987

Premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, David Trueba’s film tells the story of a sensual and intelligent encounter by two very different generations.

Pragda is arriving at New York’s emblematic cinemas with CINEART Spain. It will tour NYC’s most dynamic boroughs while showcasing one award-winning Spanish film and visiting a landmark film house every month. CINEART Spain aims to discover new Spanish film lovers by delivering terrific Spanish cinema to all corners of New York. Already an ardent Spanish film cineaste? Join Pragda in exploring New York neighborhoods and iconic cinema institutions.

CINEART Spain welcomes the summer with the screening of the steamy Madrid, 1987, directed by David Trueba, at Spectacle Theater. The film was a success at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 and has been a favorite among attendees of the Festival of New Spanish Cinema. Spectacle is a community screening space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, established and staffed entirely by volunteers. Their programming encompasses overlooked works, offbeat gems, contemporary art, radical polemics, live performance, and more.

Madrid, 1987

• Directed by David Trueba, Spain, 2011, 104 minutes.
• In Spanish with English subtitles. View trailer.

On a hot summer day in a vacant Madrid during a period of social and political transition in Spain, Miguel, a feared and respected journalist, sets up a meeting in a café with Ángela, a young journalism student. He takes her to a friend’s studio. His intentions are clearly sexual; hers are less clear. Chance events force them together for more time than they would have chosen, locked in a bathroom, naked, without the possibility of escape. Removed from the outside world, the pair, who represents polarized generations, is pitted in an unevenly matched duel involving age, intellect, ambition and experience. The political and social context of the period provides the background to the power shifts that continually take place between them over twenty-four hours.