41st Portland International Film Festival

For more than four decades, the Portland International Film Festival has been the Northwest Film Center’s annual showcase of new world cinema.

Established in 1977 and drawing an audience of over 40,000, PIFF is the largest film event in Oregon, showing more than 100 feature films and 60 shorts to Portland audiences for three weeks each February.

Spanish Films at 41st PIFF

Birdboy: The Forgotten Children

• On Saturday, February 17 at 2:30 pm. At Cinematic. Buy tickets.
• On Tuesday, February 27 at 6:30 pm. At Empirical Theater at OMSI. Buy tickets.
• Directed by Alberto Vazquez & Pedro Rivero, Spain, 2015, 76 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. View trailer.

Adapted from his graphic novel, Alberto Vázquez’s debut feature, co-directed with Pedro Rivero, tackles themes of climate change, ecological disaster, systemic racism, and class warfare with striking design - and a glimmer of hope. Dinki is a teenage mouse living on a post-apocalyptic island in a world of anthropomorphic creatures. She and a group of friends escape the island for the fabled big city, including her beloved Birdboy, on the lam and nursing a bad drug habit. Unknown to anyone, Birdboy possesses a secret that could change the world.

Lots of Kids, A Monkey and A Castle

• On Sunday, February 18 at 7 pm. At Whitsell Auditorium. Buy tickets.
• On Sunday, February 25 at 12:30 pm. At Cinematic. Buy tickets.
• Directed by Gustavo Salmerón, Spain, 2017, 88 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. View trailer.

Julita Salmerón wanted three things in life: to have lots of children, to own a monkey, and to live in a castle. She actually did have six children, owned a monkey, and lived in a real castle. But when the 2008 economic crisis hit, septuagenarian Julita was forced to clear out the castle - and everything she hoarded - for less opulent accommodations. Gustavo Salmerón’s feature debut is an idiosyncratic portrait of a charismatic mother and her singular approach to life, and at the same time a madcap allegory for the contemporary situation in Spain.

Summer 1993

• On Saturday, February 24 at 8 pm. At Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6. Buy tickets.
• On Thursday, March 1 at 7 pm. At Cinematic. Buy tickets.
• Directed by Carla Simón, Spain, 2017, 97 minutes. In Catalan with English subtitles. View trailer.

Simón’s evocative autobiographical film won the Best First Feature prize at the Berlin Film Festival and is this year’s Spanish Oscar submission. Following the death of her parents, six-year-old Frida is forced from bustling Barcelona to the Catalan provinces to live with her aunt and uncle. Country life is a challenge: aside from the emotional upheaval, the nature that surrounds her is mysterious, if not dangerous. She also has a new little sister she must take care of, and must deal with feelings such as jealousy. But it is the circumstances of her parents’ passing that casts a shadow over how she is treated by the local community.