Another Spanish Cinema: Film in Catalunya, 1906 - 2006

Another Spanish Cinema:
Film in Catalunya, 1906 - 2006
Jan 27 - Feb 14

Organized by the Film Society in collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull and Catalan Films. Special thanks the Filmoteca de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the Instituto Cervantes in New York. Special thanks also to Angela Bosch, Mary Ann Newman, Ramon Font, Rosa Saz Alpuente and Roman Gubern for their help in making this series possible.

Radiating out from one of the world's most beautiful cities, Barcelona, Catalunya has had its own language, cultural traditions and extraordinary achievement in the visual arts. It has also been a center for creative filmmaking that has often produced innovative works of great merit, works that are both part of Spanish film history but which also constitute a distinctive stream within that history.

Barcelona was arguably the capital of filmmaking in Spain during the silent era, relinquishing that position only with the coming of sound in the early 30s. After the Civil War the use of the Catalan language in any kind of public discourse was forbidden by the Franco government.

The 60s in Catalunya were marked by the emergence of what became known as the Barcelona School, a loose collection of filmmakers whose works reflected everything from a fascination with the world of design and fashion to a commitment to upturn traditional notions of storytelling in the cinema. Seen today, the films of the Barcelona School seem closer in spirit to American avant-garde work of the time than to the European modernism of the French New Wave, Antonioni or Bergman.

The death of Franco and the reestablishment of democracy in Spain led to an outpouring of nationalist spirit in Catalan cinema, which once again could be in the Catalan language. Works such as The Burned City and Diamond Plaza broke box-office records, and their screenings at times became political events.

Catalunya continued to be a haven for some of the most singular, offbeat filmmakers in Spain, such as Bigas Luna and Agust� Villaronga, whose films combined the anarchic streak of 60s cinema with pronounced use of genre, especially horror.

Beginning with his extraordinary documentary Oca�a, Intermittent Portrait, Ventura Pons created one of the most distinctive filmographies in contemporary Spanish cinema, examining and challenging sexual identities and stereotypes while drawing rich and often hilarious portraits of contemporary Catalans (and others).

Director Marc Recha in The Cherry Tree and other works has taken the Catalan countryside as his setting and his subject, showing the dark currents that often run beneath the seemingly tranquil and often gorgeous landscapes.

And Jos� Luis Guerin is that rare experimental filmmaker whose works attract considerable audiences, especially his marvelous Work in Progress.








Don Juan Tenorio
Ricardo de Ba�os, 1922; 130m
with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Jos� Zorilla's classic drama of reckless lust and final retribution has been a perennial favorite on the Spanish stage and screen. This 1922 version pulled out the stops in terms of sets, costumes, and bold, sweeping action; the Filmoteca of Catalunya has now beautifully restored the film, and we're delighted to be able to include it. Spanish actor Fortunio Bonanova stars as the intrepid Don, who on the basis of a bet with a friend sets out to seduce Do�a In�s, a young novice in a convent, but a string of unexpected events leads him into a duel and then to flee Seville. The poor, betrayed In�s dies of a broken heart. Years later he returns, but finds his every step haunted by the spirit of the woman he abandoned. This version proved so popular that in the mid-30s the Ba�os brothers released it again, this time with a synchronized soundtrack; unhappily, the work was soon banned as immoral by Franco.

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Sun Feb 5: 2




Films of the Spanish Civil War
Compilation program, approx. 80m

Report on the Revolutionary Movement in Barcelona / Reportaje de movimento revolucionario en Barcelona Mateo Santos, 1936

Help Madrid! / Ayuda a Madrid!, F�lix Marquet, 1936

The Burial of Durruti / L'enterrament de Durruti, CNT-FAI, 1936

Heroic Division / Divisi�n heroica, F�lix Marquet and Adrian Porchet, 1937

Catalunya Martyred / Catalunya m�rtir, J. Marsillach, 1938

A rare opportunity to see a number of works created in Catalunya during the Spanish Civil War; each film an invaluable record of the times, created at the moment when the battle between the Republic and Franco's forces was raging all over Spain. Report on the Revolutionary Movement was one of the first films produced by the anarcho-syndicalists, showing the mounting of defenses against the Franco forces; Help Madrid! details the help being sent by Catalans to the besieged Spanish capital; The Burial of Durruti records a burial that became a rallying point for the resistance; Heroic Division looks at the battle to take Huesca; and Catalunya Martyred captures the terrible effects of Franco's aerial bombardment of Barcelona.

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Sun Feb 5: 4:45



Ditirambo
Gonzalo Su�rez, 1967; 92m
This modernist updating of the detective film begins as reporter Jos� Ditirambo is hired by the bitter widow of a recently deceased writer to find the young woman who, according to the widow, destroyed her husband's life. Unsure of how far he wants to go with his assignment, Ditirambo nevertheless begins to assemble a wide variety of possible connections to the young woman. He visits one of her ex-lovers, the millionaire Palacios, who give him a suitcase full of money for her; another connection gives him a gun with which he should kill her. "I have the impression that the world was created just for me" confesses Ditirambo at one point, and that suspicion that everything is predestined runs through the film, as everyone eventually is revealed to be part of someone else's plot.

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Sun Feb 5: 6:45
Tue Feb 7: 4:20



Oca�a, Intermittent Portrait / Oca�a, retrat intermitent
Ventura Pons, 1979; 90m
Made on a shoestring, Pons's first major work is a remarkable and touching look at the life and world of one of Barcelona's most famous and outrageous transvestites. An Andalusian performance artist and political activist, Oca�a seemed to embody in his/her person several of the margins of Spanish society in the immediate post-Franco era, bearing witness in his frequent, extravagant walks down Barcelona's Ramblas to a spirit of rebelliousness that years of dictatorship had been unable to squelch. A milestone in Spanish cinema, and still a great cult favorite, Oca�a helped open a dialogue on sexual politics that continues to develop today.

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Sun Feb 5: 8:30
Tue Feb 7: 8:30



Diamond Plaza / La Pla�a del Diamant
Francesc Betriu, 1982; 117m
Another watershed work for Catalan cinema, Diamond Plaza was based on a novel by Merc� Redoreda that many others had tried to adapt to the screen but failed. A rich historical fresco that stretches from the late 20s up through the early 50s, the film focuses on Colometa, beautifully played by S�lvia Munt, a young woman whose life registers everything from the euphoria that accompanied the declaration of the Spanish Republic to the devastation and economic hardship that defined the years following the Civil War. For the first time, many Spaniards from all regions saw their day-to-day lives during the darkest years of Franco captured on screen. An immensely powerful work, as well as an inspiring example of the new freedom Spaniards at last felt when addressing the recent past.


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Tue Feb 7: 2
Tue Feb 7: 6:15
Sun Feb 12: 3



In a Glass Cage / Tras el cristal
Agust� Villaronga, 1987; 100m
"They don't make art-shockers like this anymore. In a Glass Cage is a great film, but I'm too scared to show it to my friends." - John Waters

Warning: this film contains images that some audiences might find upsetting.

In a house set off by itself on a lonely stretch of coast lives Klaus, a former medical officer in a concentration camp, his wife Griselda and her daughter Rena. Since suffering an accident, Klaus has been paralyzed and forced to stay in an iron lung. One day a young man, Angelo, shows up at their door, looking for work; they try to dissuade him, but it turns out Angelo has some information on one of Klaus's past crimes, so they allow him to stay and become Klaus's nurse. Gradually, it appears that Angelo has come not so much to care for Klaus as to learn from him; he's clearly bent on following in his master's nefarious footsteps, pursuing his model to the end of the line. Still banned in Australia, In a Glass Cage is an extraordinarily upsetting film; Villaronga so carefully and powerfully creates an atmosphere of total depravity, a world with no rules or boundaries, that watching the story unfold is profoundly unsettling - these are people completely aware of who they are and what they've done who reveal not a shred of conscience. Not for the faint-hearted, but not to be missed.

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Wed Feb 8: 1
Sat Feb 11: 9:45
Sun Feb 12: 1



Warsaw Bridge / Pont de Vars�via
Pere Portabella, 1989; 90m
One of the key figures not only of Catalan but of Spanish cinema, Pere Portabella began his career as a producer of such seminal works as Saura's Los Golfos and Bunuel's Viridiana. In the 60s he was one of the founders and guiding lights of the Barcelona School, contributing to a number of its main works. After over ten years of inactivity in the cinema, Portabella roared back, arriving at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival with Warsaw Bridge. The film sets in motion three different characters, whose stories cross, run parallel or at times completely veer away from one another. Continuing with the experimental narrative approach that had characterized his work with the Barcelona School, Portabella creates a kind of "city symphony" of Barcelona (complete with a symphony orchestra playing outdoors), moving us through a dizzying number of locations as his characters keep trying to adjust to their new surroundings.

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Wed Feb 8: 3
Sat Feb 11: 3:30




Anguish / Angoixa
Bigas Luna, 1987; 93m
"When critics and audiences were going ga-ga over the postmodern techniques of Scream, it was interesting that no one made note of Bigas Luna's Anguish, an immensely clever take on the genre made almost a decade before Craven's popular favorite... Bloody, scary, funny, and unsettling, Anguish is right up there with Mute Witness as the best fright flick that most people have never heard of." - Rod Armstrong, reel.com

One of Spanish cinema's resident malditos, Bigas Luna has fashioned a horror film that takes on the hardest subject of them all: why do people watch horror films? American actor Michael Lerner stars as a near-sighted mama's boy working for an ophthalmologist who is unexpectedly laid off. Goaded by his mother, he sets off take his revenge on a clear-sighted world - or is that that plot of the horror film we saw last week? Circling in and out of itself with grace and wit, Anguish has more than enough chills to delight fans of the genre while offering everybody else a reflection on why people like to be scared.

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Thurs Feb 9: 2
Thurs Feb 9: 9:30
Sun Feb 12: 7:30



Tapas
Jose Corbacho & Juan Cruz, 2005; 94m
One of the great box-office hits last year across Spain, Tapas is the the debut feature of actor Jos� Corbacho, who co-directed with his friend Juan Cruz. Five interlocking stories, stories with resonance in any large urban center, make up the narrative: young people wondering if their dead-end supermarket jobs are all the careers they'll ever have, a lonely, middle aged woman scared to follow up on some contacts she's made through the Internet, a retired couple carefully economizing their limited means. Yet at least once a day their stories and the many others that make up their neighborhood take time out for succulent little dishes - Spain's famous tapas - that come with some late afternoon refreshment. Gathering for tapas becomes much more than a time to eat, it's a time to reflect, to reassess, and especially to find out how everyone else is doing. Filmed largely in Barcelona's L'Hospitalet de Llobregat district, Tapas is a warm and often humorous portrait of a community and the rituals that not only sustain it but often taste quite good as well.

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Thurs Feb 9: 4
Fri Feb 10: 8:30
Mon Feb 13: 1



Fausto 5.0
Alex Oll�, Isidro Ortiz, Carlos Padriso, 2001; 94m
Responsible for one of the most remarkable performances in the cultural festival that accompanied the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the Catalan group La Fura dels Baus is widely considered one of Europe's most cutting-edge theater companies. Having earlier adapted Goethe's Faust to a multimedia play and then an opera, here they re-imagine it as film. Noted cancer specialist Dr. Fausto (Miguel Angel Sol�) sets off for a medical conference in a distant city; upon arrival he's picked up in a taxi by Santos (Eduard Fernandez), a former patient of Fausto's who claims that years before the good doctor saved his life - and now Santos would like to return the favor. Santos leads Fausto to a world existing in the shadow of the one we see and live in, a place where memory and fear compete for space with sensual reality. The extraordinary cinematography by Pedro del Rey bathes the images with rich curtains of color that give an instant theatrical feel to all its many locations. An auspicious entrance for a major theatrical company into the world of cinema.

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Fri Feb 10: 2
Fri Feb 10: 6:30



Work in Progress / En construcci�n
Jos� Luis Guerin, 2001; 125m
One of the rare experimental filmmakers whose works often draw considerable audiences, Jos� Luis Guerin here offers a delightful visual essay on the transformation of Barcelona's "Barrio Chino" - so named because it was near the docks from which ships would embark for the Far East. Long known for its dimly lit cabarets, colorful characters and narrow back alleys, the Barrio inevitably began to fall victim to the wave of "urban renewal" that swept Barcelona around the time of the 1992 Olympic Games. Weaving together sequences of the Barrio's inhabitants, the construction workers sent to tear it down, and visitors hoping to catch a last glimpse of history, as well as beautiful period footage that shows the Barrio Chino in its more notorious days, Guerin takes us on a journey to one of Spain's most legendary neighborhoods. Awarded the International Critics' Prize at the 2001 San Sebastian International Film Festival.

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Fri Feb 10: 4
Sat Feb 11: 1



Costa Brava
Marta Balletb�-Coll, 1995; 95m
Ana - played by director Balletb�-Coll - works as a tour guide but is really a performance artist, trying to scrape together the funds to stage on a new monologue. One day an American engineer living in Barcelona, Montserrat, comes on her tour. Although claiming not to be interested sexually in women, Montserrat feels attracted to Ana, and the two begin to spend a lot of time together. For her part, Ana doesn't quite know what to make of her new friend, whose culture and background - American, Jewish, science, academia - couldn't be further from her own. Yet gradually a bond begins to grow between them. Balletb�-Coll, who studied filmmaking at Columbia, brings a wonderfully light touch to the story; the action is so easygoing and free-flowing, especially the scenes between the two women, that the film has an improvisatory feel. Winner of Audience Awards at both the San Francisco and Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Festivals.