VAMOS! Time for the 23rd PelIcula Spanish Film Festival

We live in stories. Whether we’re scrolling through TikTok or IG, listening to a friend’s complaints, or an advertising pitch, we’re invested in storytelling. For the 23rd edition of Película Spanish Film Festival, returning once again to EDSA Shangi-La Plaza from Oct. 5 to 13, stories can be a balm—maybe even a quixotic tilt against the onslaught of chaos.

Or maybe not quite so dramatic. As Instituto Cervantes cultural director Jóse Maria Fons Guardiola, new IC director Francisco Javier López Tapia and Shangri-La Plaza senior retail marketing manager Arianne Nadurata outlined the 25 films being screened at Shangri-La’s Red Carpet Cinema this year, we learned there will indeed be drama—but also dance, documentary, animation, comedy, romance.

Tapia opened his first Película presscon by calling it “a dialogue, and a space where countries, languages and culture connect.” His pick this year was opening film Robot Dreams, a 2023 animation by Pablo Berger. “The film explores the themes of connection, loneliness and the importance of understanding each other. It’s unique in its humor and emotion, and I’m sure it will connect with all audiences.”

Generally, the very idea of a film festival still holds a certain romance for film fans.

“Película is a celebration of cinema, and it’s a way of exploring new ideas on the big screen, which may be considered something romantic and unique in these times of streaming, Netflix, HBO and so on,” said Tapia.

IC cultural director Jóse Guardiola highlighted this year’s Special Sections, particularly Creadores Teatrales (theatrical productions) which, in a first, will focus on four filmed theater and opera productions from Teatro Real in Madrid: there’s El amor brujo (a ballet version by the Victor Ullate company), flamencos Carmen and Fuenteovejuna (both adapted by Antonio Gades), and El publico, an opera based on a Lorca text with flamenco greats in the cast.

There are intriguing entries like Benito Pérez Buñuel, which explores the connection between the novels of Benito Pérez Galdós and surreal filmmaker Luis Buñuel through fact, fiction and animation. (A bonus: the film’s director Luis Roca will attend the Oct. 8 screening at 2:30 p.m.)

Documentaries will include Rioja: The Land of a Thousand Wines by director José Luis López-Linares (showing Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m.), which goes much deeper than the bottles of red into the “value chain” and tradition of this Spanish region. Also showing is López-Linares’ Hispanoamérica: Canto de vida y esperanza (Latin America: A Song of Life and Hope), which explores three centuries of Spanish influence on South America.

For our press screening, we watched Siete mesas de billar francés (Seven French Billiards Tables), a 2007 Spanish comic-melodrama directed by a woman, Gracia Querejeta, and set in a flailing Spanish poolhall resurrected by the daughter after her father dies. It’s the kind of foreign film you almost forgot they still made: stories intertwined with drama, small observations and humor. Plus some great trick shots, of course.

Other Official Selections this year include Víctor Erice’s latest; Cerrar los ojos (2023), La estrella azul (2023), directed by Javier Macipe; LGBT-centered entry Te estoy amando locamente (Love and Revolution) directed by Alejandro Marin; and comedies like Casa en llamas (2024) and Loli Tormenta (2023), presented at the fest by the film’s scriptwriter Mario Torrecillas.

As IC is about promoting the influence of culture and Spanish language, the Latin American films include Argentinean comedy Puan (María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat, 2023), the Brazilian Pacarrete (Allan Deberton, 2019), and the Panamenian Las hijas (Kattia Zúñiga, 2023).