Fans of Hispanic and Latin cinema rejoice! Next month sees the return of the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival for its seventh year running. What’s more, the difficulties imposed by coronavirus means that the festival won’t be confined to the Scottish capital and isolated screenings elsewhere, but will instead be available to stream from any device online in the UK.
From the 6th to the 25th October, the Festival will showcase a total of eleven feature films, five documentaries and eleven short offerings in its eclectic programme. Among those will be Cabezas Parlantes (Talking Heads), which is a monologues competition conceived of and created during the COVID-19 lockdown. What’s more, ESFF is proud to welcome its first ever Oscar winner as a guest of the fest.
That individual is none other than Juan José Campanella, director of El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in their Eyes), which won the Best Foreign Feature award in 2009. Campanella will be presenting an introduction to his latest film El Cuento de las Comadrejas (The Weasels’ Tale), as well as fielding questions from the public in a Q&A session after the screening.
Other highlights include Intemperie (Out in the Open) by Benito Zambrano, Araña (Spider) by Andrés Wood and Pólvora en el Corazón (Gunpowder Heart) by Camila Urrutia. Meanwhile there is also a dedicated school’s programme, with Los Futbolísmos (The Footballest) by Miguel Ángel Lamata aimed at P7 to S2 and Una Vez Más (Once Again) by Guillermo Rojas screened for S3 to S6.
There are also several documentaries as part of the programme, each celebrating the life and labours of a famous national figure. Among others, there are investigations into what made Catalan composer and pianist Enrique Granados tick, a deep dive into the work of renowned graphic designer José María Cruz Novillo and the man behind the genius of legendary film director Carlos Saura.
The festival will work on a sliding scale payment system: those who wish to watch just one film will pay £5, while five films can be scooped up for £20 and access to the entire programme is available for £40. Each title will be available for between 24 and 48 hours on the scheduled day of screening. More information about all of the above can be found at the official ESFF website.