La jaula de oro (The Golden Dream, 2013)
Directed by Diego Quemada-Díez
Written by Diego Quemada-Díez, Gibrán Portela, Lucía Carreras,
Starring: Karen Noemí Martínez Pineda, Rodolfo Domínguez, Brandon López
BY JESÚS RODERO
Despite having been premiered in 2013 at the Cannes Film Festival, La jaula de oro deals with a highly topical subject: that of unaccompanied migrant minors from Central America to the USA. It was the first and only featured-length film to date by Mexican-Spanish director Diego Quemada-Díez and received a number of awards at numerous film festivals around the world, including 9 Ariels from the Mexican Film Academy. Quemada-Díez had worked as a camera operator for filmmakers such as Alejandro González Iñárritu, Spike Lee, Tony Scott and Ken Loach. The influence of the latter is obvious in the documentary style the film adopts – with no concessions to sentimentalism or melodrama –, the improvised or (semi)improvised dialogues and the use of non-professional actors.
Hermosa juventud (Beautiful Youth, 2014)
Directed by Jaime Rosales
Written by Jaime Rosales and Enric Rufas
Starring: Ingrid García Jonsson, Carlos Rodríguez, Inma Nieto
BY RAQUEL MARTÍNEZ
In December 2014, the Spanish Prime Minister ̶ Mariano Rajoy ̶ claimed that the economic crisis was ‘history’.[1] In the same year, Catalan director Jaime Rosales released Beautiful Youth, a bleak observation of the effects of such crisis on one of Spain’s most vulnerable sectors: young people. Read More…
El pastor (The Shepherd, 2016)
Written and directed by Jonathan Cenzual Burley
Starring: Maribel Iglesias, Miguel Martín, Alfonso Mendiguchía
BY PABLO DE CASTRO
The 23rd edition of the extraordinary Spanish-speaking VIVA Festival Manchester took place just a couple of months ago. The film section is just one area of a much wider festival which addresses all means of artistic and cultural expression, including theatre, dance and visual arts. Once the festival was over, a few selected jewels started touring the country (same as the ‘Best of the IDFA’ tours The Netherlands: this will typically happen when cinema is seen as a cultural activity beyond business). These hidden gems have recently arrived to our own very Glasgow, and oh dear, the three selected pieces happen to arrive from Latin America. Read More…
Un perro andaluz (Un Chien Andalou, 1929)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Starring: Pierre Batcheff, Simone Mareuil, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí
Making sense of Buñuel’s Un chien andalou
BY BEATRIZ CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ
Daring and irreverent, Un chien andalou sets out to break expectations and to shock viewers out of their bourgeois numbed comfort. Although a black and white, silent film only seventeen minutes long, it remains one of the most influential and celebrated short-films in the history of cinema. Read More…
Volver (2006)
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave
BY BEATRIZ CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ
From the outset, Pedro Almodóvar’s film Volver (2006) tackles the topics of memory and trauma across three generations of women. As the title Volver (meaning to return, to come back) indicates, this film is marked by a strong sense of disjointed time where the past refuses to stay in the past, ghosts refuse to stay buried, traumatic events refuse to be forgotten. Read More…
LOREAK (Flowers, 2014)
Directed by José Mari Goenaga and Jon Garaño
Written by José Mari Goenaga, Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregui
Starring: Nagore Aranburu, Itziar Aizpuru, Itziar Ituño
BY R. MARTÍNEZ
Why do we give flowers to people? Are they a colourful allegory of youth and beauty? Or are they a tangible proof of feelings such as love or perhaps regret? Flowers are the main theme that binds the film Loreak’s female protagonists together. Loreak was filmed in the Basque language and is one of the strongest examples of 2015’s Basque cinema together with Asier Altuna’s enigmatic Amama. Read More…
Stockholm (2013)
Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Written by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Isabel Peña
Starring Aura Garrido, Javier Pereira, Jesús Caba
BY R. MARTÍNEZ
From time to time, one watches a film whose originality and inventiveness are able to surprise and excite even the most worn out audiences’ imaginations, always looking out for a true and special cinematic experience. Stockholm provides a lot of that and a little more. It is fresh and surprising, well-shot and better performed. It is new but has a very powerful cult element to it, borrowing from very interesting sources that should not be revealed, thus intending to optimise the artistic journey that is Stockholm. The less the spectator knows about it, the better. Read More…
El verano de los peces voladores (The Summer of Flying Fish, 2013)
Directed by Marcela Said
Written by Julio Rojas and Marcela Said
Starring Francisca Walker, Gregory Cohen, Carlos Cayuqueo, Guillermo Lorca, María Izquierdo
By ANA ZUMELZU
The Summer of Flying Fish is the first narrative film by Chilean director Marcela Said, who is known for her documentary works such as El Mocito and I Love Pinochet. It incorporates elements of a traditional coming-of-age tale, along with social and political commentary concerning the conflict between the indigenous southern Chilean Mapuche people and the state over land rights – the so-called “Mapuche movement”. Read More…
Todas las mujeres (2013)
Director: Mariano Barroso
Written by: Alejandro Hernández and Mariano Barroso
Starring: Eduard Fernández, Michelle Jenner, Lucía Quintana, María Morales, Petra Martínez, Marta Larralde, Nathalie Poza.
BY REBECCA NAUGHTEN
Adapted from the TV series of the same name in which veterinarian Nacho (Eduard Fernández) interacted with a different woman in each episode, Mariano Barroso’s film compresses the story down into not much more than a 24 hour period wherein Nacho’s life implodes. I’m not going to say what the exact turn of events are, because it’s something that is revealed gradually, but ‘plot’ is also somewhat superfluous to the real point of the film: a study in character. Read More…
Sigo Siendo – Kachkaniraqmi (I am still here, 2012)
Directed by Javier Corcuera
Written by Javier Corcuera and Ana de la Prada
Starring: Máximo Damián, Félix Quispe “Duco”, “Palomita”
BY ÚRSULA COX
In Quechua Chanka (from the Ayacucho province in the Peruvian Andes) when two dear old friends meet after a long time the chosen greeting is “¡Kachkaniraqmi!” to express that, despite everything, one still is, still exists, is still here or, in its plural version (Quechua in all its forms doesn’t differentiate between plural and singular), we are still here, we are still, despite the odds. Read More…
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