A SNAPSHOT of the best new Spanish language cinema is to be presented in Edinburgh next month with an outreach programme for Stirling, Tranent, Glasgow and Inverness.
A packed programme of cinema screenings, guest appearances and cultural events featuring a total of 15 films from Spain and Latin America will be on offer during the 11th Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival (ESFF).
The festival’s popular wine-tasting event will also return with a selection of tapas from local Spanish restaurants.
Festival director Marian Aréchaga said Spanish cinema was “on a high”, with the number of films produced in Spain rising steadily in the past few years.
“At ESFF we are delighted to bring the best of those titles alongside some of the most exciting features from Latin America,” she said.
All films will screen in their original language with English subtitles. For hard of hearing audiences, ESFF continues to work with local accessibility experts, Screen Language, to offer screenings with descriptive captions.
Fiction and reality are also part of this year’s programme. The Teacher Who Promised The Sea by Patricia Font is a historical drama that follows one woman’s search for her great-grandfather’s remains and unearths long-buried memories of the Spanish Civil War.
I Am Nevenka, about the first Spaniard who spoke up during the #MeToo movement, is the latest film directed by multi-award-winning writer, actor and director Icíar Bollaín.
Birth by Pau Teixidor is dedicated to women whose children were stolen at birth in the 1980s and the documentary I Am A Rebel by Paloma Concejero takes viewers on a journey through Spain in the 1970s and 1980s featuring British singer Jeanette.
In a new partnership celebrating the depth and diversity of cinema, ESFF and French Film Festival UK have joined forces to present Celia Rico Clavellino’s Los Pequeños Amores which will tour to Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, The Fraser Centre, Tranent, Institut Français d’Écosse, Edinburgh; Glasgow Film Theatre and Eden Court, Inverness.
In addition, Spanish novelist María Dueñas, whose works have been translated into more than 30 languages and adapted for television, will be in conversation with Alexis Grohmann about literature, writing and the art of narrative.
And in a new collaboration with Scottish charity, The Welcoming, which supports asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Edinburgh, ESFF will present a special workshop with ESFF producer, Dr Natalia Stengel.
This year, ESFF will also collaborate with online education platform Platino Educa to offer The Olive Tree by Icíar Bollaín, which is free online for all UK secondary schools.
The festival runs from October 2 to 26 in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Tranent, Inverness and Stirling
