09/12/2010

Spanish Cinema Now, one of the longest-running series at New York’s Lincoln Film Center, had its first edition in 1992. From December 10-23, 2010 it will screen 17 features representing this year’s most prominent Spanish productions.

The event, organised in collaboration with the Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute (ICAA) and New York’s Instituto Cervantes, highlights the great variety of Spanish cinema, which despite having a few problems at home, is considered abroad to be one of the richest film industries in the world.

The selection of films ranges unproblematically between genres and levels of production, from auteur films to blockbusters. Part of it openly aims to reach out to audiences without abandoning quality, with films like Guillem Morales’s thriller Julia’s Eyes [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which is on its way to becoming the best-performing Spanish film of 2010 (see news); Andrucha Waddington’s epic Lope [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news); Emilio Aragón’s comedy-drama Paper Birds (see news); and Óscar Aibar’s The Great Vázquez [+see also:
trailer
interview: Óscar Aibar
film profile].

Moreover, the line-up includes new works, still unreleased in Spain, by some of the country’s most distinguished filmmakers, including Álex de la Iglesia’s A Sad Trumpet Ballad [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Álex de la Iglesia
film profile], which won Best Director at Venice (see news); Icíar Bollaín’s Even the Rain [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile], which is representing Spain in the nomination race for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (see news); and José Luis Guerín’s Guest [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see review).

As the Lincoln Film Center explains in its programme notes, the Civil War dominates much historical debate in Spain, which is reflected cinematically in films like Agustí Villaronga’s Black Bread, which garnered great acclaim at the latest San Sebastian Film Festival (see news); Lluis Galter’s Caracremada [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; and Mikel Rueda’s Stars to Wish Upon.

The selection is completed by José María Orbe’s intimate film Father [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Miguel Ángel Vivas’s violent thriller Kidnapped (see news), created by the producers of Cell 211 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Monzón
film profile] and tipped by many to be one of this season’s surprises; Achero Mañas’s Anything You Want [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news); animated film Chico & Rita [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando
film profile], a four-way production directed by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba; Sigfrid Monleón’s The Consul of Sodom, about the life of poet Gil de Viedma (see news); Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga’s Basque-language 80 Days; and experimental film Elisa K. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jordi Cadena and Judith Colell.

(Translated from Spanish)