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FESTIVALS Spain / Russia

Spanish films to unspool at Moscow fest

by 

Spanish cinema will be in the spotlight at the 33rd Moscow International Film Festival, which will run from June 23-July 2. Thirteen Spanish-produced features will screen in the different sections of the Russian event, with one highlight being the world premiere of Alberto Morais’s The Waves [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
in Official Competition.

The Waves, Morais’s debut narrative feature, is a story of searching and loneliness. It centres on Miguel (Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa), who, after his wife’s death, undertakes a journey whose last stop is Argelés-sur-Mer, a place where he lost too many things, almost all of them irretrievable.

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The “Made in Spain” section will show the bulk of the Spanish contingent, with eight films. This selection perfectly represents the two main characteristics of Spanish cinema, its variety and the growing importance of Catalan cinema.

Although Spain has earned much-deserved recognition abroad for its genre films, this selection has no shortage of other types of film, including teen romantic comedies (Three Meters Above the Sky [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, the biggest box-office hit of 2010), historical dramas (Black Bread [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), socially-critical films (Even the Rain [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile
]
) and action and adventure movies (Bruc [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
).

Many of the most successful Spanish productions of recent years were produced by Catalan companies, which are characterised by an approach that is pragmatic and far removed from any excessive artistic pretensions, even though highly original auteurs like Ventura Pons (presenting A Thousand Fools [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
in Moscow) and Agustí Villaronga (Black Bread) continue to work with them.

Rounding off the selection are another Catalan film, Whatever Happens by Robert Bellsolá; Emilio Aragón’s debut feature Paper Birds [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
; and Gustavo Balsa’s Galician flick Doentes.

Other Spanish films in the line-up are Jorge Coira’s 18 Meals [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, in the “Sex, Food, Culture, Glory” section; Carlos Iglesias’s Ispansi [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and Enrique Gabriel’s Small Lives, both in “Russian Trace”; and Frank Spano’s Venezuelan co-production One Hour Less, in the “Perspectives” competition.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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