Travel Pick: Pop Culture and Cinema in United States
Spanish Cinema Now

Several of the films explore the lives of Spaniards living or working outside the country itself (Train of Memory, Habana Blues, and Juanita Narboni), while others like Obaba, Hidden, and Ausentes portray a persistent theme in literature and the visual arts: the mystic heart of Spain. The selection features both familiar directors with new works— Montxo Armendariz and Ventura Pons, both the subjects of retrospectives in previous years— as well as emerging talents, including Mercedes Alvarez, Farida Benlyazid and Manuel Martín Cuenca.

A special section of the event, Jousting with Shadows and Light:  Don Quixote on Screen, will showcase five Don Quixote screen adaptations in honor of a worldwide celebration of the 400th Anniversary of Cervantes’ classic. 

The cinematic gems to be screened as part of Jousting with Shadows and Light:  Don Quixote on Screen are Orson Welles’ Don Quixote, a rarely seen and incomplete but nevertheless fascinating take on the novel (assembled by assistant director Jess Franco); Grigori Kozintsev’s Don Quixote, a magisterial Russian version; Rafael Gil’s 1947 Spanish super-production Don Quixote of La Mancha ; G. W. Pabst’s 1934 The Adventures of Don Quixote, featuring the great Russian baritone Feodor Chaliapin; Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s 1992 epic mini-series Miguel de Cervantes’ Quixote, featuring one of the final performances by the great Fernando Rey in the title role; and Don Quixote, Maurice Elvey’s rarely seen British silent production from 1920.