CONSIDERED THE biggest Spanish film festival in Asia, the Pelicula-Pelikula Spanish Film Festival returns for its 15th year from Oct. 5 to 15 at the Greenbelt 3 cinemas in Makati City.

This year’s catalog contains more than 20 Spanish and Latin American films from various genres – from romance, comedy and drama to documentaries, thrillers, and animation.

Included in this year’s lineup is 1898, Los ultimos de Filipinas, a 2016 film by Salvador Calvo which tells the story the Baler siege, where a group of Spanish soldiers resisted for 337 days without knowing that the war was over. Mr. Calvo will hold a Q&A after the screening on Oct. 6 at 9:30 p.m.

One the same day (Oct. 6) Spanish director Sally Gutiérrez will present her 2017 documentary Ta acorda ba Tu el Filipinas? The documentary shows the overlapping waves of globalization from past to present as “the film intertwines the lives, the struggles and memories of different speech communities,” according to a press release. The Manila screening will be the world premiere of Ms. Gutierrez’s work.

AN ACTRESS, A WRITER
Also included in this year’s lineup is La noche en que mi madre mató a mi madre (2016) by Ines Paris which tells of an actress, desperate to return to the limelight, who invites a famous Argentine actor to star in a film helmed by her husband and his ex-wife but things don’t go as planned.

El ciudadano ilustre (2016), a film from Argentina by Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn, is about an Argentinian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature who returns to his hometown after accepting an invitation from the local government – but the welcome is not as warm as he expects.

Other films from Argentina include Koblic (2016) by Sebastian Borensztein about a Navy captain on the run from the constant threat of dictatorship, and El auge del humano (2016) by Eduardo Williams, a documentary about three men from Argentina, Mozambique, and the Philippines working boring jobs who starts to see their lives from a different point of view.

Aside from Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela will also be screening some of their best contemporary films which include Mexico’s El comienzo del tiempo (2014) by Bernardo Arellano, about an elderly couple struggling to survive in a financial crisis, and Venezuela’s La casa del fin de los tiempos (2013) by Alejandro Hidalgo which tells the story of a mother who is haunted by apparitions inside her old house where a tragedy occurred.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD
A major fixture of the festival, the “Audience Choice” award, will give viewers the option to rate the films they have watched. For every five movies they see, viewers will qualify to join a raffle for a chance to win a round-trip ticket to Spain.

Pelicula-Pelikula will also hold regional legs in December in collaboration with the Film Development Council of the Philippines. A select number of films shown in the Manila leg of the festival will also be shown in Baguio, Iloilo, and Davao.

For the schedule, complete lineup of films and other information about the festival, log on to Instituto Cervantes Web site (www.manila.cervantes.es) or visit the Facebook page of Instituto Cervantes: www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila.

The Pelicula-Pelikula festival will be held from Oct. 5 to 15 at the Greenbelt 3 Cinemas in Makati City. Tickets are priced at P100 and can be bought from the cinema ticket office or online via sureseats.com. – ZBC

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