The HSBC Spanish Film Festival presented by Palace returns with a fiesta of films, fantastic and unflinching. The curated line-up, the festival’s largest yet, features films from Spain and Latin America.
This year’s Festival’s Centrepiece is THE TEACHER WHO PROMISED THE SEA (El Maestro que Prometió el Mar), winner of the Audience Prize at the 2024 Gaudí Awards. What an astute audience that was!
This deservedly acclaimed drama features Enric Auquer (the star of last year’s festival hit Two Many Chefs) and Laia Costa, and tells the true story of Antoni Benaiges, a teacher who brought progressive teaching methods to a small village in 1930s Burgos.
A victim of the one true unholy, Fascist and apoplectic Catholic Church during Franco’s rise in Spain, Benaiges was a true educator, impressing on his students a guided discovery of their own learning, much like the inspirational teacher, Sergio, in the recent Mexican marvel, Radical.
THE TEACHER WHO PROMISED THE SEA brings oceans of opportunity and hope to children suffocated under an oppressive pincer movement between Fascist politics and controlling priests. It is a story of a genuine yet unfulfilled promise, a commitment cruelly curtailed by a monstrous regime, an enemy of education, democracy and humanity.
Set nearly a century ago, THE TEACHER WHO PROMISED THE SEA is still relevant in the struggle of inspiration over discouragement, of nurturing social justice over base human nature.
The Opening Night Fiesta of the 2024 HSBC SPANISH FILM FESTIVAL features a screening of THE MOVIE TELLER (La Contadora de Películas).
A moving tribute to cinema and the magical power of storytelling, the star-studded new film from multi award-winning director Lone Scherfig (AN EDUCATION, ONE DAY) follows a young woman’s coming-of-age in the rugged heart of Chile’s Atacama Desert in 1966. Medardo (Antonio de La Torre, MARSHLAND) and María (Academy Award-nominee Bérénice Bejo, THE ARTIST) lead a simple life with their children, finding joy in the weekly visits to the cinema. However when their routine is disrupted and Medardo can’t go, he asks his daughter to describe it and what begins as a duty soon becomes a gift, as her talent for recounting the films blossoms. With each retelling, she breathes life into the magic of film, attracting and captivating the townsfolk with tales of drama, humour, and romance. As her storytelling prowess grows, so does the town’s love for the cinema.
The Festival is celebrating 120 years since the birth of Salvador Dalí, with a showcase of films from and about the surrealist master. Featuring fabulous archival footage, the documentary SALVADOR DALÍ: IN SEARCH OF IMMORTALITY is an intimate and revelatory examination of the one-of-a-kind genius who managed to live a life that is a work of art unto itself.
The famed Hitchcock psychological thriller SPELLBOUND follows a psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) who helps an amnesiac (Gregory Peck) uncover his true identity and features a not to be missed surreal dream sequence by Salvador Dalí.
Two short films, UN CHIEN ANDALOU & L’AGE D’OR, will be screened together as one session. A 1929 avant-garde short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, Un Chien Andalou is a dreamlike, surrealistic exploration of the subconscious whilst L’Age d’Or is a surrealist tale of a man and a woman who are passionately in love, but their attempts to consummate it are thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
Closing the festival is THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (La montaña sagrad), which recently marked its 50th Anniversary and was famously co-funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surreal and visually stunning avant-garde odyssey has been fully restored in lavish 4K presenting a mesmerizing journey through a series of bizarre and symbolic experiences, exploring themes of spirituality, enlightenment, and the quest for transcendence.
The HSBC Spanish Film Festival Sydney 19 June – 10 July: Palace Norton Street, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinema, Paddington
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