Martes 4 de marzo, 7 pm / Tuesday March 4th,
7 pm
En
el CCE. Entrada gratuita. At CCE. Admission free
El abuelo, José Luis Garci, 1998,
150’.
In Spanish with English
subtitles.
Synopsis: The beginning of the
20th century in a small town in the north of Spain. Don Rodrigo de Arista, the Count of Albrit returns from America, old, almost blind and ruined. Owing
to the death of his only son, he comes to know the bitter truth that one
of his two grand-daughters is illegitimate, and does not have the noble
blood of the Albrit. His days are ending and don Rodrigo wishes, and
indeed needs, to know which of the two girls belongs to the authentic
lineage of his blood, since it is she who will receive his moral
heirloom. The Countess Lucrecia, his daughter in law, an independent and
bold woman, refuses to reveal the truth. Don Rodrigo's friend, Don
Pío Coronado, will aid the old man in his attempt to solve the
enigma.
Martes 11 de marzo, 7 pm / Tuesday
March 11th, 7 pm
En el CCE. Entrada gratuita. At CCE.
Admission free.
En la ciudad sin
límites, Antonio Hernández, 2002, 118’.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Synopsis: IN THE BOUNDLESS
CITY Victor joins his family in Paris to take care of his ailing father,
Max. One day, he catches his father throwing away his medicine and furtively
getting dressed with the intention of running away from the nursing home.
The family, preoccupied with the inheritance of his pharmaceutical
empire, dismiss this behaviour as unimportant; it is just the product of
his madness. Victor, however, moved by the loneliness of the old man,
tries to gain his trust and ends up becoming his accomplice. He helps him
escape from the clinic and accompanies him through the streets of Paris, where Max spent his youth and which he no longer recognises. Little by little,
Victor finds out that Max’s madness hides a secret. His father is
not the man he had always appeared to be. He discovers that his mother
did something which he cannot forgive. And he discovers that the family
owes its existence to a lie.
Martes 18 de marzo, 7 pm /
Tuesday March 18th, 7 pm
En el CCE. Entrada gratuita. At CCE.
Admission free.
El espíritu de la
colmena, Víctor Erice, 1973, 97’.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Synopsis: The year is 1940. A
town lost on the plains of Castile. It is Sunday and the cinema truck
arrives. Everything is set up in the broken down building that is used
for all events, for the screening of the film «Doctor
Frankenstein». For ninety minutes the lonely streets of the town
echo with the old words of the romantic myth. Two little girls are in the
audience, Isabel and Ana, sisters, are fascinated by the film. Ana, the
little one asks her older sister why the monster kills and why it dies in
the end. Isabel uses her imagination, saying that the monster is a spirit
that can appear as a friend if called up by certain words. That, which
for Isabel is only a game of imagination, for Ana becomes reality. She
wants to see the monster. She seeks it and calls to it. The old house
where the girls live with their parents becomes full of some intangible
presence which only Ana seems willing to discover. Fernando and Teresa,
the parents, live their nostalgias and frustrations, unsuspecting of the
things hidden in the little girl's mind. One day Ana disappears and they
anxiously look for her. They find her but only she will ever know the end
of her adventure.
Martes 25 de marzo, 7 pm / Tuesday, March
25th, 7 pm
En el CCE. Entrada gratuita. At CCE.
Admission free.
El viaje a ninguna parte. Fernando
Fernán-Gómez, 1986. 140’.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Synopsis: This story of a
group of men and women, that in another age would have been called
"strolling players", whose adventures combine the picaresque,
the literature of manners and the literature of imagination, takes place
against the backdrop of the Spain of some twenty or thirty years ago. The
roots of this story lie in the very distant past, with the birth in the
caravan of a travelling theatrical troupe of Don Arturo, the leading
actor and director of the company. The denouement takes place in an
institution, let us call it a "home" for the elderly, where the
last of the line of the theatrical Galvans reaches the end of his journey
to "nowhere". All along his journey through life, work and
love, money problems and family complications, hunger and resounding
success are all inextricably intertwined. The main character, Carlos
Galván, is the son of Don Arturo, director and star of the
company's productions. He is also the father of Carlitos, a boy with no
theatrical ambitions, and who can say he is wrong at a time when radio,
football and cinema combine in a ferocious alliance to threaten the
living of these wayside players. Carlos Galván eventually takes
refuge in a fantasy world which, according to those who know about these
things, is also a form of reality.
