Stella cadente / Falling Star (Lluís Miñarro, 2014)

My Eye for Film review of Lluís Miñarro's Stella cadente (2014) can be found here.

This was the only Spanish film I managed to see while I was at the Edinburgh film festival this past weekend but, if you are in the vicinity of Edinburgh this week, I'd recommend My Name Is Salt (Farida Pacha, 2013) (my review for EFF is here), Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang, 2013), and Garnet's Gold (Ed Perkins, 2014).
Stella cadente is one of those films that has so much going on that connections slowly become apparent as it percolates through your mind later, so I do have more to say beyond my review - I'll come back to it on here soon.

Mercado de futuros / Futures Market (Mercedes Álvarez, 2011)

I had a weekend of watching Spanish documentaries including La pantalla herida / The Wounded Screen (Luís María Ferrández, 2014), which discusses the current sorry state of the Spanish film industry - I'm intending to write something about that one in the next week or so, but it may have to wait until I get back from a few days at the Edinburgh international film festival (which starts this week).

Blow Horn (Lluís Miñarro, 2010)

Available to view online with English subtitles here. 

Subtle Gestures and Tonsorial Distractions: Javier Bardem as a Travelling Performer

The Dancer Upstairs

That Javier Bardem idea I've been muttering about for more than a year has finally come to fruition (although, as is often the way, not quite in the form that I'd originally envisaged). The Cine-Files sent out a performance-related call for papers last November and my submission was accepted. You can now read 'Subtle Gestures and Tonsorial Distractions: Javier Bardem as a Travelling Performer' - in which I discuss Bardem's performances in Los lunes al sol, Mar adentro, Before Night Falls, The Dancer Upstairs, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and No Country for Old Men - over at The Cine-Files. There are a host of other acting-related pieces on the site as well.

Lost Classic: Entre tinieblas / Dark Habits (Pedro Almodóvar, 1983)

I've written about Almodóvar's Entre tinieblas / Dark Habits for The Big Picture Magazine as part of their 'Lost Classics' series - you can read it here.

La leyenda del tiempo (Isaki Lacuesta, 2006)

My viewing habits are a bit skewed at the moment because my Filmin subscription is about to expire and I won't be renewing it in the immediate future - so I'm trying to watch the films they have that are difficult to get hold of on DVD (or that aren't currently available on DVD).

London Spanish Film Festival Spring Weekend

Image taken from the LSFF mailer

The London Spanish Film Festival's 4th Spring Weekend started yesterday. You can see an overview that I wrote over at Eye for Film, and I've also written reviews of 15 años y un día / 15 Years and One Day (Gracia Querejeta, 2013) [I'm slightly mystified by the awards attention it has received in Spain], Petit Indi / Little Indi (Marc Recha, 2009) [showing as part of a Sergi López retrospective, and my favourite of the films that are screening], and Todas las mujeres / All the Women (Mariano Barroso, 2013).

Petit Indi / Little Indi (Marc Recha, 2009)

Cravan vs. Cravan (Isaki Lacuesta, 2002)

El mundo que fue (y el que es) / The World That Was (and That Is) (Pablo Llorca, 2011)

Most of Llorca's films are available to view for free (without subtitles at the moment, but PLAT are due to launch an English site soon) here. I'm intending to write something about his films once I've watched a few more of them.

I've drifted off course a bit in the last week. I will return to El futuro, as previously indicated, but I've also finished the Pere Portabella boxset and am working out how to write about that collection of films.