Os Fenómenos / Aces (Alfonso Zarauza, 2014)

Lola Dueñas and Miguel de Lira

    The Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival at the Cornerhouse in Manchester has had a change of format this year - instead of its usual two weeks in March, they're doing three 'weekenders' throughout the year. I'm hoping that this is simply because they're currently in the process of moving building, and not a permanent change. This weekend has been the first one (programme), the next will be in June with a focus on Mexican cinema (given that this coincides with the Edinburgh Film Festival - and this year they're taking Mexico as their main country focus - I presume that there will be an overlap with the films screening in Edinburgh), and third will be at some point in the autumn. 
    The range of films and times of day they were shown for this first weekend meant that it wasn't worth me travelling down to Manchester, but I have reviewed Os Fenómenos / Aces (Alfonso Zarauza, 2014) - the only Spanish film in the line-up that I had been looking out for - for Eye for Film (here).

More Eye for Film reviews

Bertsolari

    I have been reviewing some of the films showing at ¡Viva! 20th Spanish and Latin American film festival at the Cornerhouse cinema in Manchester for Eye for Film. If you click on the titles, you will see my reviews of Los últimos días / The Last Days (Àlex Pastor and David Pastor, 2013) and Menú degustació / Tasting Menu (Roger Gual, 2013).
    I went to Manchester for the day on Sunday, to see two films - Carlos Saura's Los golfos / The Delinquents (1960) [yes, that does mean that the return of the Carlos Saura Challenge is imminent!] and Bertsolari (Asier Altuna, 2011), the latter of which is by far my favourite of the five films I've seen from the festival. A review of Los golfos will also appear on Eye for Film this week, but I will write a separate post for the blog so as to continue with the challenge.