Baku to host Spanish Film Festival

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Spanish Film Festival will be held in Baku on March 9-13 and feature 7 films, Trend reported.

The festival, organized by the Spanish Embassy in Baku, will screen films at Landmark Cinema Hall. All films are in Spanish and have English subtitles. Entrance in free, on first come, first serve basis.

A Spanish-Mexican-French drama ¨Even the rain¨ (2010) will open the festival on March 9.

The storyline is about Mexican director and executive producer who travel to Bolivia to shoot a film depicting Christopher Columbus’s conquest.

They unexpectedly land themselves in a moral crisis when their crew arrives at Cochabamba, Bolivia, during the intensifying 2000 Cochabamba protests, which their key native actor persistently leads. The film received nominations and won awards internationally, including an Ariel Award for Best Ibero-American Film and three Goya Awards, one of which was Best Original Score. Additionally, the film was nominated as Spain’s entry for the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film.

“Sleep Tight”, horror thriller will be shown on March 10.

Apartment concierge Cesar is a miserable person who believes he was born without the ability to be happy. As a result, he decides his mission is to make life a living hell for everyone around him. A majority of the tenants are easy to agitate, but Clara proves to be harder than the most. So Cesar goes extreme to make this young woman to mentally break down.

March 11, will be marked by screening of two films: Spanish-Argentine comedy-drama “Truman” (2015) at 4:00 p.m. and Spanish thriller “Marshland” (2014) at 7:00 p.m.

“Truman” is about childhood friends Julian and Tomas. Eventually, the two have lost sight of their friendship. After a reunion one day in Madrid, their friendship survived once again, as if it had never fallen asleep. Together the two spend a few wonderful days in the city full of nostalgic memories and unforgettable experiences -knowing that this will probably be their last reunion because Julian has been diagnosed terminally ill with cancer. The film won five Goya Awards, including Best Film award.

“Marshland” is set in 1980. Two Madrid homicide detectives are sent to a forgotten town to investigate the disappearance of two teenage sisters during the town's festivities. They appear to be poles apart but must settle their differences and bring the murderer to justice before more young women lose their lives. The film won ten Goya Awards, including Best Film.

Two more films will be screened on March 12.

Spanish black-and-white silent drama “Snow White” (2012) will be shown at 4:00 p.m., while and “Chico & Rita” adult animated music romantic film (2010)-at 7:00 p.m.

“Snow White” based on the 1812 fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, is set in a romantic vision of 1920s Spanish Andalusia and centered on a female bullfighter. The film was Spain's Academy Awards official submission to Best Foreign Language category. The film won ten Goya Awards, including the Best Film and some prizes at the international festivals.

“Chico and Rita” is a story of love of two musicians set against backdrops of Havana, New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. The film won the Goya Award for Best Animated Film and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.

The festival will close with “Flowers” drama film (2014) on March 13. The protagonist Ane is a woman in her early forties who does not feel fulfilled. Her life changes when she starts to receive bouquets of flowers at home anonymously, once a week. A stranger leaves flowers every week in memory of someone who was important for them. “Flowers” became the first Basque language film nominated for the Goya Award for Best Film. It was also selected as the Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.