Pelicula 2011

Instituto Cervantes’ Película Spanish Film Festival turned  10 this October. And it promised to be the biggest and best showcase yet of Spanish movies in the Philippines.  The annual festival presents work by some of the most innovative and engaging artists from the Hispanic community for the local audience of film lovers, journalists and film industry representatives to enjoy.there is  a sense of familiarity Filipinos feel when watching Spanish films and television shows. The films bring to the Philippines a very accurate picture of what Spanish people go through nowadays. And my scoreboard this year is SIXTEEN (16) films at 65 pesos per film. My sked for this year's film marathon at the Greenbelt Cinema:

DATE	TIME	PARTICULARS
October 5 (Wednesday)	7:00pm	La Verguenza
	9:30pm	Primos
October 6 (Thursday)	9:30pm	Morirse esta en hebreo
October 8 (Saturday)	7:00pm	Elsa y Fred
	9:30pm	Lope
October 9 (Sunday)	7:00pm	Tambien la lluvia
	9:30pm	Fuera de Carta
October 10 (Monday)	7:00pm	Todas las canciones hablan de mi
	9:30pm	Buenas noches, España
October 11 (Tuesday)	7:00pm	Gordos
October 12 (Wednesday)	7:00pm	Amador
	9:30pm	Buried
October 13 (Thursday)	9:30pm	Yo, tambien
October 14 (Friday)
	7:00pm	Chico y Rita
October 15 (Saturday)
	9:30pm	Mar adentro
	12:00am	Didi Hollywood

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MY MEXICAN SHIVAH (Morirse esta en hebreo According to Jewish belief, from the moment a Jew is born, he or she is accompanied by two angels: an angel of light and an angel of darkness.With the passing Moishe (75), his family and friends gather in Mexico City to sit shivah, the 7-day Jewish mourning ritual.Which angel will win the battle for Moishe's soul? If the shivah reveals anything, it's that Moishe's family and friends loved him with all his flaws and mystery- and most of all his spirit.

 

 

LA VERGUENZA (THE SHAME)  A well-to-do couple, who a year prior adopted an 8 year-old child with behavioral disorders, find that they are unable to control his behavior and life with him gradually turns into a living hell. They decide to contact their social worker in hopes of giving him back .But they soon realize that there's a price to pay if they pursue this decision

 PRIMOS (Cousinhood) After being left by his fiancée days before their wedding, Diego decides to go on a trip with his cousins to a little town they used to vacation in when they were younger. They go on a weekend filled with town festivities, the perfect plan to forget everything and try to regain a past love, Martina

"ELSA Y FRED" Fred, a recently widowed Spaniard in his 70s who has led a quiet life, retires to an apartment in Madrid. Elsa, a similarly-aged but more colorful Argentinian and a chronic liar, is his neighbor. Fred has no significant health problems but is a hypochondriac. Elsa is seriously ill and undergoing dialysis but hides it from Fred. The two fall in love. Elsa throws Fred into situations the widower would have disapproved of before he met her, making him "live life and not death". Once Fred learns Elsa will probably die, he pays all their expenses for a trip to Rome to fulfill Elsa's lifelong wish of reenacting Fellini's famous scene starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni under the Fontana di Trevi in La dolce vita.After the trip to Rome, the movie ends with Fred visiting Elsa's grave in Madrid with his grandson. Fred looks at the birthdate on her tombstone and realizes she lied about how old she was and jokingly and affectionately calls her "embustera" (Spanish for "liar"). 

"You are not afraid of dying, you are afraid of living" My fave line in "ELSA Y FRED"

LOPE  is A chronicle of the life of Lope de Vega, the Spanish playwright who dominated Spain's early Golden Age of theater.  Born November 25th, 1562, about two years before Marlowe and Shakespeare, Lope Félix de Vega Carpio would outlive them both. The first Spanish dramatist to make a living as a playwright--and now considered the greatest of all Spanish playwrights--Lope is said to have written over 2,200 plays, over 500 of which have survived! Most of Lope's plays revolve around the conflicting claims of love and honor. His most popular work is Fuente Ovejuna or The Sheep Well (1614) in which a tyrannous feudal lord is murdered by villagers who refuse to confess and are eventually spared by intervention of the king. Other popular plays by Lope de Vega include The Foolish Lady (1613), Finding Truth Through Doubt (1620-24), The Knight from OlmedaPunishment without Revenge (1631). (1622) and 

EVEN THE RAIN/ TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA Spanish director Sebastián, his executive producer Costa and all his crew are in Bolivia, in the Cochabamba area, to shoot a motion picture about Christopher Columbus, his first explorations and the way the Spaniards treated the Indians at the time. Costa has chosen this place because the budget of the film is tight and here he can hire supernumeraries, local actors and extras on the cheap. Things go more or less smoothly until a conflict erupts over the privatization of the water supply. The trouble is that one of the local actors, is a leading activist in the protest movement

FUERA dE CARTA Maxi (Javier Cámara) thinks his life is perfect. He is a famous cook who owns a top hyped restaurant in Chueca (the gay district of Madrid), with his most important goal being to get the restaurant rated by the Michelin guide. He is living the homosexual lifestyle without problems and hangups, with his employees as his closest confidants -including Alex (Lola Dueñas) and Ramiro (Fernando Tejero). But when his son Edu (Junio Valverde) and daughter (who were born from an unsuccessful marriage) appear and a new neighbor, Horacio (Benjamín Vicuña) moves in (an attractive famous Argentinian ex-soccer player), they will completely turn his life upside down and make him question his values.... It has non-stop comedy twists involving Maxi, the children, the employees in the restaurant, the handsome neighbor, and Maxi's parents. Just when you think you can't laugh anymore, it takes things one step further.

Todas las canciones hablan de mí (Every Song Is About Me) After many years together, Ramiro and Andrea decide to end their relationship. Supported by his friends, Ramiro tries to get over his breakup by making plans and focusing on his future, but all he really wants is to go back to Andrea, who he still loves.

                                                                                         
Raya Martin's Buenas noches, España (Good night, Spain)
In another lifetime, a Spanish couple takes drugs and teleports through their television set. A troubled young man travels through the countryside and meets a lost woman. During the trip, they discover a museum housing the expatriated paintings of the most important Filipino artist of the revolution. Eventually, the Spanish couple disappears toward their colony. Inspired by one of the earliest teleportation accounts, which happened between the Philippines and Mexico during the colonial period.

GORDOS" (FAT PEOPLE) is a comedy about life's excesses and deficiencies; about our insecurities, phobias, obsessions, traumas, mistakes, fears, blame, desires, hopes, challenges, concessions, goals, relationships, love, sex, health, family... about survival in the widest and "largest" sense of the word.

AMADOR Marcela (Magaly Solier from Milk of Sorrow) is a young woman who lives with her boyfriend, Nelson. Both of them are immigrants. She intends to leave him, but changes her mind when she finds out that she is pregnant, although she doesn't tell him about her pregnancy. Nelson earn a living as a flower thief. He keeps the flowers in the fridge, but when it breaks they have to buy a new one, but don't money for the rent. So Marcela decides to take a job in the city. She begins to take care of a bed-ridden older man whose family is out of town. But only a week into her job and the man dies. Marcela knows that if she calls his family to inform about his death she won't get the money so she keep the things as they are as if the man was still alive

BURIED. Paul Conroy is not ready to die. But when he wakes up six feet underground with no idea of who put him there or why, life for the truck driver and family man instantly becomes a hellish struggle for survival. Buried with only a cell phone and a lighter, his contact with the outside world and ability to piece together clues that could help him discover his location are maddeningly limited. Poor reception, a rapidly draining battery, and a dwindling oxygen supply become his worst enemies in a tightly confined race against time, fighting panic, despair and delirium, Paul has only ninety minutes to be rescued before his worst nightmare comes true.

Yo Tambien "Me Too" is a surprising social drama. The film is about 34-year-old Daniel from Seville. He is the first European man with Down's Syndrome to get a university degree. When Daniel gets a new job, he meets Laura, an open-minded colleague. Their friendship attracts the attention of friends and family who regard it as a problem if Daniel falls in love with Laura.

 

CHICO Y RITA Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

 

 

The Sea Inside (Mar adentro) is a 2004 film based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro (played by Javier Bardem), a Spanish ship mechanic left quadriplegic after a diving accident. Sampedro fought a 29-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life. He was not able to get the court to rule in his favor, but he did end his life (after drinking potassium cyanide).

 

 

Di Di Hollywood tells the tale of an actress whose wish for stardom comes with much sacrifice. Her name is Diana Diaz, a young woman with a wild yet familiar dream: to become a star. And to win it all, she is willing to lose herself. She heads out for the bright lights of Miami, and despite its glamorous first impression, this new paradise proves anything but. Fed up with casting calls, hunger, and near-poverty, Diana continues to push forward, and with the help of new friends, makes it out to Hollywood. As Diana Diaz transforms into Di Di, the once ambitious bartender truly learns the price of stardom.