¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Festival 2021 at HOME
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
HOME’s much-loved ¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Festival returns for its 27th year with a summery edition that takes audiences around the world. This year’s festival features 17 days of film premieres and special events, starting on Friday 6 August with the UK premiere of Ariel Winograd’s El Robo del siglo (The Heist of the Century), an entertaining true crime heist movie from Argentina.
As always the films come from across Spain and Latin America, with titles such as Bolivian social thriller Pseudo lining up alongside Salvador — a Colombian tale of love in the shadow of police brutality. From the Dominican Republic, Mosh is a dazzling drama about a 16-year-old dancer, while Chilean film Los Fuertes (The Strong Ones) is a passionate, up-beat gay love story set in the fishing port of Valdivia.
HOME’s much-loved ¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Festival returns for its 27th year with a summery edition that takes audiences around the world.
The programme for 2021 also includes a particularly strong showing from Spanish filmmakers, with eight films from the country, including a trip to the sunny Basque coast in Lara Izagirre’s road movie Nora. Comedic family drama La Boda de Rosa (Rosa’s Wedding) takes audiences to sun-drenched Valencia, and Luis López Carrassco’s El Año del descubrimiento (The Year of Discovery) is a highly praised documentary look at post-dictatorship Spain.
¡Viva! is known for bringing together audiences and filmmakers and while the pandemic has meant a few changes for this year, the festival includes recorded filmmaker introductions for many of the screenings which will be viewable online, as well as in-person introductions from curators Rachel Hayward, Jessie Gibbs and Andy Willis.
In addition, Jason Wood, HOME’s Creative Director of Film & Culture and author of the newly published The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema, will introduce a preview screening of Mexican auteur Michel Franco’s Nuevo orden (New Order). Finally, audiences will be pleased by the return of Café Cervantes (Sat 21 August), a free but ticketed al fresco event (weather permitting) where film lovers can practice their Spanish and discuss the festival.
