Classics of Spanish Cinema at Instituto Cervantes
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
The first edition of a brand new and exciting Classics of Spanish Cinema series features screenings of films by two of Spain’s most influential filmmakers, Luis García Berlanga and Luis Buñuel, at Instituto Cervantes this March and April. The series is coordinated and presented by the University of Salford’s Professor Andy Willis, who Manchester film fans will recognise from his work helping to shape the film programme at HOME, including as part of the team behind the long-running Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival.
The series aims to introduce audiences to some foundational Spanish cinema, examining and contextualising the two featured filmmakers unique visions and ability to challenge conventions across fours screenings. Starting on Thursday 27 March, Classics of Spanish Cinema begins with Luis García Berlanga’s 1952 film Bienvenido, Míster Marshall (Welcome Mr. Marshall), a smartly comic film about a small village preparing for the arrival of American dignitaries. Acknowledged as a pioneer of modern Spanish cinema, Berlanga is known for his anti-Francoist social satire and his 1951 Esa Pareja Feliz (That Happy Couple), which follows a humble couple who start to dream big when they a win contest sponsored by a soap brand, screens on Thursday 3 April.
Provocative Spanish-Mexican filmmaker Luis Buñuel is known for his free-wheeling surrealist attacks on establishment institutions. His first film, 1929’s Un chien andalou was a collaboration with Salvador Dalí and its depiction of a razor blade slicing an eyeball set the tone for his career to come. The Classics of Spanish Cinema series presents two of his later works at the Instituto Cervantes this April, as Buñuel takes aim at the church in 1961’s Viridiana (Thu 10 April) — a film banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican — before setting his sights on the frivolity of the upper classes in 1962’s classic The Exterminating Angel (Thu 24 April).
