It’s time again for another burst of Spanish and Latin American culture at the UK’s most important Spanish language festival in Manchester. This is ¡Viva!‘s 25th Anniversary edition and it’s appropriately entitled ‘Serious Fun‘. The Festival kicks off on Friday 22 March with a party open to all. The opening film on the first night is Tiempo después (Some Time After) (Spain-Portugal 2018). This absurdist comedy sets up the theme of the festival derived from the tradition of esperpento – which according to the festival brochure “uses satire, the grotesque and dark humour to skewer the foibles of contemporary society”. There are 21 new features from Spain and Latin America in the programme. Most are new releases, ten of them UK premières. But there are also archive films and, fitting the theme this time, we get the chance to see the work of masters such as Luis García Berlanga and Álex de la Iglesia and a celebration of the late great Bigas Luna with his ‘Iberian Trilogy’. These are three great directors, each with a distinctive funny bone and a commitment to biting social/political satire.
As usual, most screenings are enhanced by introductions and Q&As with special guests. This year there are five short films on the programme, presented before selected features and there are events of various kinds including ‘One Hour Intros’ to the Festival theme and to Contemporary Argentinian Cinema, Café Cervantes and the Language Lab, and a discussion about the environment and mass corporate agriculture.
This year’s festival also joins in with HOME’s year-long Celebration of Women in Global Cinema with particular films and events highlighted for the contributions of female directors, writers, producers and stars. There is also a theatre presentation by Barcelona’s Señor Serrano with their new production Kingdom running from Tuesday 9th to Saturday 13th April.
We’ve been attending and reporting on ¡Viva! for a long time (going back to the 1990s) and you can find posts about the festival on the blog using this tag: https://itpworld.wordpress.com/tag/viva/ In all that time we’ve found this to be a very special festival with enthusiastic audiences, great guests and events and the opportunity to see a diverse range of films, many of which would not otherwise appear in the UK.
I can recommend the archive screenings, particularly El Verdugo (The Executioner, Spain-Italy 1963) by Luis García Berlanga on Tuesday 26 March at 18.05 with an introduction by Andy Willis. Of the new films, the only one I’ve seen is Rojo (Argentina 2018), showing on Monday 8 April at 18.15 with an introduction by Dr Carmen Herrero. I’d certainly recommend this preview screening. Argentinian cinema is definitely on the rise in terms of the number of films appearing at international festivals (even if they struggle to get seen in the UK). There are six Argentinian titles in the programme including a new documentary by one of the major figures of Latin American cinema, Fernando Solanos. Viaje a los pueblos fumigados (Argentina 2017) shows on Wednesday 27 March at 18.00 with a post-screening discussion on this investigation into the impact of global ‘agribusiness’ in Argentina. There is a second screening on Friday 29 March at 15.50 which I’m aiming to catch.
There are 18 Spanish films in all including seven archive features plus other Latin American films from Mexico, Peru and Columbia and one from The Dominican Republic. It’s a wonderful programme put together by the regular team of Rachel Hayward, Jessie Gibbs and Andy Willis and I can’t wait to get stuck in. See you there!
The Case for Global Film 