Five films I want to see at D'A Festival

Crumbs

I thought I'd highlight a film from each of the five days that I'll be in Barcelona - not all of the films are Spanish, but that's a reflection of what I'll be watching. The details here are deliberately scant because I avoid reading too much about films before seeing them.

Monday 27th: A Misteriosa Morte de Pérola (Guto Parente, 2015)

I am also keen on catching El incendio (Juan Schnitman, 2015) but that doesn't start until 10pm - given that I'll have been at the airport from around 6am, there's a strong possibility that I won't manage to stay the course on my first day. So for my pick I'll settle on this Brazilian mid-lengther about which I know nothing other than the contents of this very creepy trailer (the foley artists are earning their keep here).

Tuesday 28th: No todo es vigilia / Not All Is Vigil (Hermes Paralluelo, 2014)

A love story of a long-married couple who are becoming too infirm to take care of each other, this film gained a lot of positive word of mouth on twitter - and glowing reviews - after screening at San Sebastián last year. The subtitled trailer can be found here.

Wednesday 29th: Sueñan los androides / Androids Dream (Ion de Sosa, 2014)

Directed by the cinematographer of El Futuro (and this trailer suggests some visual similarities with that film), this low voltage sci-fi takes place in Benidorm in 2052 and is one of the central films in the festival's (Im)Possible Futures section.  

Thursday 30th: Crumbs (Miguel Llansó, 2015)

Another (Im)Possible Futures film and another one that I first heard about on twitter (this time in relation to the Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year). Crumbs looks like an Ethiopian cross between the journeys in the Baba Yaga fairytale and The Wizard of Oz. With Nazis and a bonus Father Christmas.

Friday 1st: Queen of Earth (Alex Ross Perry, 2015)

An examination of the friendship between two miserable women (Elisabeth Moss and Katherine Waterston) and a downward spiral into delusion and madness - sounds like perfect Friday night viewing and a great way to end my trip!

The next time I post, I'll be in Barcelona!

London Spanish Film Festival - Spring Weekend 2015

Image taken from the festival's email mailout

    The London Spanish Film Festival's 5th Spring Weekend runs this Friday to Sunday - the programme and schedule can be found here. 
    I don't have time to write up anything new this week, but I can recommend the three films from the line-up that I've seen - Todos están muertos, 10,000 Km, and La isla mínima. I haven't written about the latter yet, but the other two featured in my top 10 new Spanish films of 2014 and I also reviewed 10,000 Km last autumn.
    If - like me - you can't make it to London to see the films, El Niño got a UK DVD release before Christmas and the other four are all available on DVD in Spain (the three that I've seen all have optional English subs).

Preview: D'A Festival

    The fifth edition of D’A - Festival Internacional de Cine D'Autor de Barcelona (D'A Festival for short) starts in a couple of weeks and runs between 24th April and 3rd May. They announced their full programme on Friday, and I've written a preview piece over at Eye for Film - here. 
    I will be in Barcelona for five days during the festival. I had to book my flights a few weeks ago without knowing the full lineup or the actual schedule, so there are a couple of films that I'm disappointed to miss (namely Jonás Trueba's Los exiliados románticos / The Romantic Exiles (2015), although I'm fairly sure that will pop up over here at some point). But they've programmed a wide range of films that I've not seen before (both Spanish and otherwise - I'm looking forward to watching a Bulgarian film with subtitles in castellano) - and I'll also be checking out the listings for 'normal' cinemas too. 
    There will be stuff on the films I see - as well as the festival / Barcelona - appearing on here, and I'll also be writing reviews for Eye for Film. I'm not entirely sure how I'll set it out on here - it will probably depend on how much gets written while I'm actually there. To be continued...
UPDATE: There's now a handy PDF of the schedule available to download.

A Collective Impulse: an overview

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

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I'd like to thank the following people for allowing me access to their work: Luis López Carrasco (twice over), Xurxo Chirro, Ramiro Ledo, Víctor Moreno (for giving me access to Edificio España before the DVD was available), Juan Rayos, Lourdes Pérez at Producción El Viaje (and Jonay García at Digital 104 for passing that request along), and Deica audiovisual.
If you click on the 'el otro cine español' label below, you will see posts relating to my ongoing, broader project.