Festival of New Spanish Cinema 2015 in Portland

The official traveling festival presents the new trends in Spanish Cinema at the 38th Portland International Film Festival.

In its eighth consecutive year, the 2015 Festival of New Spanish Cinema consolidates itself as the most important itinerant festival of contemporary Spanish Cinema in North America. The Festival will screen some of the riskiest and most innovative Spanish films of the year, while providing a space for the audience to discuss the pieces with the filmmakers.

The 38th Portland International Film Festival offers a broad spectrum of new films from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela showcasing new work from both established and emerging filmmakers.

The Conference (February 19–21) will offer a wide range of panels, papers, and discussions by academics, writers, and directors from the United States and participating countries. Presenting his film at the Festival and as part of the Conference is Spanish filmmaker Carlos Marques-Marcet (10,000 KM).

Spanish films and schedule:

10,000 KM

Sergi and Alex, a young couple in Barcelona, are ready to take their passionate affair to the next level when 10,000 kilometers suddenly come between them. Alex is offered a year-long, all-expenses-paid artist’s residency in Los Angeles. Sergi, hesitant at first, encourages Alex to follow her dream, leaving them with only one way to bridge the divide: digital.

• On Sunday, February 8 at 1 pm (Fox Tower). Buy tickets.
• On Wednesday, February 18 at 6 pm (Cinema 21). Buy tickets.
• Directed by Carlos Marques-Marcet. In attendance on February 18th.

All the Women

Nacho (Eduard Fernández), a down and out middle-aged veterinarian, seeks advice from the most important women in his life –his lover, his ex-wife, his mother, his sister-in-law, and his psychologist– after his scheme to steal cattle from his father-in-law falls apart. He soon finds his character indicted by each one of them.

• On Wednesday, February 18 at 8:30 pm (Cinema 21). Buy ticket.
• On Thursday, February 19 at 9 pm (Fox Tower). Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.
• Directed by Mariano Barroso. Winner of the Goya (Spanish Academy Award) for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ärtico

​In Ärtico, winner of special mention honors at the Berlin Film Festival, Jota and Simón are two “quinquis” (nomads), aged 20, who wander the streets every day to make ends meet. But apart from their carefree thefts and wheelings and dealings, both want something they don’t have. Simon, already a father, wishes to find his freedom. Jota, whose girlfriend is a drug-addict, wants to build a family. What will it take for these two –and a drifting generation like them– to find a life?

• On Thursday, February 12 at 9 pm (Roseway Theater) Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, February 21 at 5 pm (Fox Tower) Buy tickets.
• Directed by Gabriel Velázquez.

In a Foreign Land

​The current financial crisis in Spain has forced an estimated 700,000 young people to emigrate in the hope of a better life. Edinburgh is one of the most popular destinations, and the city is home to more than 20,000 Spanish people. In a Foreign Land follows three expatriates as they build new lives and search for new opportunities while suffering the indignation of having been cast aside by their own country.

• On Thursday, February 19 at 9:30 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, February 21 at 9:45 pm (Fox Tower). Buy tickets.
• Directed by Icíar Bollaín.

Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

​Beatles fans will recognize the title from the lyrics in Strawberry Fields Forever, which John Lennon wrote while in southern Spain playing a minor character in Richard Lester’s anti-war movie How I Won the War. This event forms the backdrop of Trueba’s charming road movie about Antonio, a Spanish schoolteacher who is also an avid Beatles fan.

• On Friday, February 6 at 6 pm (Cinema 21). Buy tickets.
• On Wednesday, February 11 at 5:45 pm (Roseway Theater). Buy tickets.
• Directed by David Trueba.

Magical Girl

​In this dark and offbeat social satire, Alicia, a 12-year-old dying girl, asks her father Luis to buy her a wildly expensive gift: the dress of anime character “Magical Girl Yukiko,” once worn by a Japanese pop star. Fate puts Luis in the path Bárbara, a deeply unstable married woman, and Damian, a retired teacher with a troubled past. Bárbara, Luis, and Damian are thrown into a world of blackmail that will change their lives forever.

• On Thursday, February 19 at 3:30 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, February 21 at 4:30 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.
• Directed by Carlos Vermut.

Wild Tales

Living up to the expectations of the title, Damián Szifrón’s outrageously entertaining anthology of six blackly-comic short stories packs a buzz-inducing wallop. Though each is unconnected from the other, they share thematic unity in their tales of frustration, bestial revenge, and the past coming back to haunt in escalating fashion.

• On Thursday, February 5 at 7 pm (Fox Tower). Buy tickets.
• Opening night. Directed by Damián Szifrón.

The Best Shortfilms from Spain

• On Friday, February 20 at 4:15 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, February 21 at 2 pm (Whitsell Auditorium). Buy tickets.

A Whole Future Together (Todo un futuro juntos)

By Pablo Remón, 18 minutes, 2014. In Spanish with English subtitles. 2015 Goya Nomination for Best Short Film. Two bankers who have sold a substantial amount of preferred shares have a conversation at a bar. One of them, the general manager, is suffering a protest: a group of victims guard his house and his family. Now, after several sleepless nights, he has finally had an epiphany.

Sequence

By Carles Torrens, 2013, 20 minutes. In English. What if you wake up one day and realize the entire world has dreamed about you?

Inside the box

By David Martin-Porras, 14 minutes, 2013. In English. When the local District Attorney comes knocking, a Texan cop is forced to face a secret that he’s been hiding from his wife in an effort to keep his family together.

I can’t right now (Ahora no puedo)

By Roser Aguilar, 12 minutes, 2012. In Spanish with English subtitles. Sara is a young actress who, after becoming a mother, decides to go back to her professional life. She becomes finalist in an audition in which the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Koala

By Daniel Remón, 16 minutes, 2012. In Spanish with English subtitles. A psychologist interviews the members of a company due to an incident: Mercedes, one of the executives, has insulted his new assistant, a young man who suffers from Down Syndrome.

Birdboy

By Alberto Vázquez, Pedro Rivero, 13 minutes, 2010, animation. A terrible industrial accident changes Little Dinki’s life forever. Now Dinki’s fate may ride on the wings of her eccentric friend Birdboy, a misfit who hides in the Dead Forest lost in his fantasies.