Visual XIV Cine Novísimo at Márgenes (1 - 10th November)

Cenizas (Carlos Balbuena, 2013)

Until 10th November, Márgenes is hosting 7 of the films from the official selection of the 14th edition of the festival VISUAL Cine Novísimo (which ran between 18th to 24th October). The festival has always focussed on newer talents, but since 2012 has concentrated on óperas primas (directorial debuts). This year two films shared the Best Film prize: Slimane (José A. Alayón, 2013) - which is among the films available at Márgenes - and Sobre la marxa / Creator of the Jungle (Jordi Morató, 2014), which I'll be seeing at the Leeds Film Festival in just over a week.
The seven films (which include fiction and documentary) available to view for free are:

• Cenizas (Carlos Balbuena, 2013)
• Gabor (Sebastián Alfie, 2013)
• Hotel Nueva Isla (Irene Gutiérrez, 2014)
• La casa de meu pere (Francina Verdés, 2014)
• Punto de partida (Sandra Rodríguez, 2013)
• Slimane (José A. Alayón, 2013)
• Temporal (Catxo, 2012)

The only one I've seen so far (just this evening) is Cenizas. Produced by Pere Portabella's 59Films, it is a starkly beautiful (the crisp black and white cinematography by Carlos Balbuena and Marta Ayuso is stunning) and almost wordless film, which follows a man as he returns to his home town (seemingly after a death in the family - the film opens with a funeral) and explores the surrounding landscapes. The gear shift about 8 minutes from the end didn't entirely work for me (although seeing Portabella's name in the credits contextualised it somewhat), but I'll be interested to see what Balbuena does next because he definitely has an eye for framing strong visual compositions.

Edificio España / The Building (Víctor Moreno, 2013)

This post has moved to my new blog - you can find it here.

Change of (twitter) address

You may have noticed that there has not been much activity on the @Spanishcineblog account lately - or that the sidebar on the left hand side now mentions two twitter accounts. I'm in the process of phasing out @Spanishcineblog and have deliberately not been tweeting much in the past month. I think twitter should be about interacting, and I don't interact that much through the blog's account anymore, for a variety of reasons but mainly because I am not logged in there often enough. I'm going to leave the account open for a while longer but will close it sooner or later.

The other account predates my starting Nobody Knows Anybody and it is the one I tweet from on a daily basis - it is my personal account, so it's not solely Spanish cinema-focussed (although I do tweet about Spanish cinema quite a lot). I won't be wholesale following all of the accounts that @Spanishcineblog does because that would unbalance my timeline but I am considerably chattier as @bookworm1979, so if you follow @Spanishcineblog or we've discussed films on there in the past, please feel free to say hi and I'll follow you back from there.

En tierra extraña / In a Foreign Land (Icíar Bollaín, 2014)

This post has been moved to my new blog - you can find it here.




Trailer IN A FOREIGN LAND by Iciar Bollain from Turanga Films on Vimeo.

Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, 8th-12th October 2014

En tierra extraña / In a Foreign Land (Icíar Bollaín, 2014)

   Edinburgh kicked off its inaugural Spanish Film Festival today with the UK premiere of Icíar Bollaín's documentary - En tierra extraña / In a Foreign Land - about how Spain's financial crisis is forcing the younger generation to emigrate. The film is one of thirteen making up the varied programme - I have previously written about Una pistola en cada mano (recommended) and 15 años y un día (I've watched it so that you don't have to) - bringing a taste of Spain to Scotland.
   I will be heading to Edinburgh to watch En tierra extraña and Los ilusos / The Wishful Thinkers (the latter of which I had begun to think I would never manage to see), but also on show are the multi-award winning La herida / Wounded, the Ricardo Darín-starring (so you can't go wrong) Un cuento chino / Chinese Takeaway, and the pro-choice documentary Yo decido: el tren de la libertad / I Decide: The Train of Liberty (which if you can't get to Edinburgh, is actually available - complete with English subtitles - on Vimeo). The full list of films can be found on the festival's website.

UPDATE (15/10/14): I have written a review of En tierra extraña - which was great - for Eye for Film and once that is up I'll post an extended version of it on here. I'll also be writing something about the elusive Los ilusos for here - I had mixed feelings about it (it's maybe a bit too clever for its own good), but there is plenty going on and I'm glad that I finally got the chance to see it. The festival was by all accounts a great success, so I'm hoping that there will be future editions.