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RELEASES Spain

Promoción fantasma, or the proof that good teen comedies exist

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Promoción fantasma [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, with over 300 copies distributed by Hispano Foxfilm, is this week’s great hope for Spanish cinema. It’s a comedy that, without hiding that it intends to be commercial and attract an adolescent audience, has managed to awaken praise from even the most hardened of critics, as with the previous work of Javier Ruiz Caldera, although perhaps to a lesser degree. His film Spanish Movie [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
reaped over €7,5m in 2009 (read more).

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The producer guessed that it wouldn’t be an ordinary comedy. Mod Producciones, a distribution company set up by Fernando Bovaira in 2008, is behind works such as Ágora [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Amenábar, Biutiful [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Iñárritu. Last year, Primos [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo became its first venture into comedy, a type of film not very popular with the new hosts of Spanish filmmakers, more interested in genre cinema.

Promoción fantasma tells the story of Modesto, played by Raúl Arévalo, a teacher who sometimes sees dead people, a problem that gets him fired from every school he ever works in. His luck changes when he is given the task to make sure that five students pass their exams and finally finish school. His students are five unique characters, all the more special because they have been dead for twenty years.

With a more limited distribution of 150 copies by Alta Films, this week comes also Katmandú, un espejo en el cielo [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(read more), Icíar Bollaín (read the interview)’s sixth feature film. After the ambitious También la lluvia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile
]
, he shoots exotic scenery again in Nepal after Bolivia, although with a more intimate mark. The film stars young actress Verónica Echegui, who plays Laia, a Catalan teacher who embarks on an ambicious and personal teaching project in the slums of the city. With these two productions, especially Promoción fantasma, Spanish cinema hopes to boost its box office innings at the beginning of 2012. Until now, the great disappointment has been B>Álex de la Iglesia’s last film La chispa de la vida which recorded less than €800,000 in its first three weeks of screening.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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