Película/Pelikula returns to Makati

SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMS, documentaries, and shorts will be giving Filipinos a taste of cultural variety for this year’s Película/Pelikula Spanish Film Festival.

The film festival will be held from Oct. 10 to 16 at Ayala Triangle Gardens and Power Plant Mall in Makati City.

José Maria Fons Guardiola, the cultural head of Instituto Cervantes de Manila, said at the press conference that this edition marks the festival’s return to Makati after five years of holding it elsewhere. “The festival was born there and, to mark the return, we’ll have the outdoor screening,” he said.

Twenty-one films will be shown this year, from Spain and Latin America. The opener is El 47, a film by Marcel Barrena that follows a bus driver who takes bold action to protest the neglect of an immigrant neighborhood in 1970s Barcelona.

There are many films of note in the official selection. One is the coming-of-age drama Reinas by Klaudia Reynicke, a Swiss-Peruvian-Spanish co-production that was selected as the Swiss entry for the Best International Feature at this year’s Oscars.

Other dramas to watch out for are Soy Nevenka, directed by Icíar Bollaín, and Nosotros, directed by Helena Taberna, both from Spain; and Becho from Uruguay. The Argentine film Por tu bien, directed by Axel Monsú, is set in the north near the Brazilian border, while the film from Brazil, Até que a música pare, is set in the south near the border of Argentina.

At the Sept. 25 press conference in Intramuros, Manila, Francisco Javier López Tapia, the director of Instituto Cervantes de Manila which is organizing the film festival, said that it will celebrate how cinema is “a powerful expression that connects different cultures.”

“Last year, we welcomed 7,000 spectators. This year, we hope to go even further,” Mr. López said in a video message.

There are documentaries as well: Un hombre libre, about Spanish writer Agustín Gómez Arcos, and La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés, about the flamenco guitar player Yerai Cortés. Spanish animated films make a return in Mariposas negras, directed by David Baute, and Robotia, directed by Diego Cagie and Diego Lucero.

On Oct. 12, preceding an afternoon screening of Robotia at Power Plant, children will have a chance to win several footballs and an official Real Madrid jersey signed by football legend Emilio Butragueño.

SPECIAL SECTIONS
PELíCULA’s section En corto: Short films from the Philippines, Latin America, and Spain will feature three Filipino shorts — Animal Lovers by Aedrian Araojo, Lip Sync Assassin by Jon Galvez, and Radikals by Arvin Belarmino.

“We try to be alert with what’s going on in the local film industry, who the young filmmakers are. That’s how we manage to platform these excellent short films each year,” Mr. Fons said.

The section Cine Maratón will present a whole day of films on Oct. 11 at the Ayala Triangle, as a celebration to mark the festival’s move back to Makati.

Its program will have five films, including the opening film El 47; Dalia y el libro rojo, directed by David Bisbano; Tasio, directed by Montxo Armendáriz; Solos en la noche, directed by Guillermo Rojas; and Reinas. It will run from 11:45 a.m. to 11 p.m.

That same day, Instituto Cervantes will host an activity for children, inviting participants to partake in arts and crafts and games.

After that, the rest of the festival will move to the Power Plant Mall Cinemas.

This year’s crop of films is also different from before, according to Mr. Fons.

“There are more dramas and films with political themes,” he said. “It was hard to find comedies. We found three, but in the past there were more. That also says a lot about the changing film culture.”

All the films will have English subtitles, and the screenings are free and open to the public. For a complete list of films and the screening schedule, visit the festival’s website () or the Facebook or Instagram pages of Instituto Cervantes de Manila. — Brontë H. Lacsamana