After a 10-year hiatus, the ¡Viva! Tour of UK cinemas is back, with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery.
The UK’s largest and most popular celebration of Spanish and Latin American culture which celebrates 25 years of cross-border creativity, collaborations and partnerships in 2019 will be bringing the best new cinema from Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America to cinemas nationwide. Queen’s Film Theatre will show three of these films between 11–29 May.
Presented by HOME Manchester and reflecting HOME’s 2019 theme Celebrating Women in Global Cinema, the touring films will all foreground female creative talent in the roles of director, writer, producer or star.
¡Viva!’s film programme is curated by Rachel Hayward, HOME’s Head of Film, Jessie Gibbs, ¡Viva! Festival Coordinator, and Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and HOME’s Senior Visiting Curator: Film.
Rachel Hayward comments: “At a time in history when the issue of borders is predominant, we welcome our 25th annual celebration of cross-border creativity and partnerships. For a quarter of a century, we have been honoured to bring the best new film and creative work from Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America to UK audiences, and we look forward to continuing to do so over the next 25 years! ¡Disfrutad el festival!”
Films screening at QFT are:
Miriam miente (Miriam Lies)
Sat 11 May, 15:45
Dirs Natalia Cabral & Oriol Estrada/DR ES 2018/80 mins
Dulce Rodríguez, Carolina Rohana, Pachy Méndez, Frank Perozo
This award-winning first fiction feature from Cabral and Estrada is a coming-of-age story that transports you to the Caribbean with a theme they know well: class conflict in the Dominican Republic. In this conflict whiteness is aligned with higher status, something which mixed race teenager Miriam cannot fail to see, not least in the attitude of her own (white) mother. As Miriam and her friend Jennifer prepare for the their joint 15th birthday party extravaganza, panic sets in when she realises the date she’s met online is in fact black. It’s tragic to witness the corrosive effects on all concerned of this endemic and internalised racism, but Miriam is bound to win your heart in this topical exploration of identity politics.
Quién te cantará
Sun 19 May, 15:15
Dir Carlos Vermut/ES FR 2018/124 mins
Eva Llorach, Najwa Nimri, Carme Elías, Natalia de Molina
Dive down the rabbit hole into an enigmatic hall of mirrors featuring a beloved singer and her talented fan; an amnesiac superstar and her devoted assistant; a doting mother and her bullying daughter… When an ‘accident’ leaves fame-weary Lila with acute memory loss, super-fan Violeta’s remarkable karaoke performance suggests an unusual solution – Violeta can teach Lila to be Lila again. Drawing comparisons with Hitchcock, Bergman and Almodóvar, and voted Best Film by the critics at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, madrileño director Vermut continues to create stylish and exciting cinema packed with complex female leads. With great music, witty dialogue, dark emotions and high drama, this is a hypnotic film to disturb and delight as the sophisticated plot unfurls.
Alanis (18)
Weds 29 May, 18:20
Dir Anahí Berneri / Argentina 2017 / 82 mins / Spanish wEngST
Sofía Gala, Dana Basso, Silvina Sabater, Carlos Antonio Vuletich
This fifth film from writer/director Berneri is a superbly well-told tale of a few days in the life of a young mother working as a prostitute in Buenos Aires. Winner of Best Director and Best Actress at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the film portrays a proud young woman doing her best for her infant son, with the beautifully naturalistic performance enhanced by the real-life mother-son relationship. Working conditions sometimes force Alanis into difficult and dangerous scenarios, but she is cast neither as a victim nor a weak woman. The deliberate lack of judgement of the oldest profession is refreshing – with interesting reflections of the female archetypes of virgin, mother and whore – set in a country where prostitution is legal but brothels are not.
The ¡Viva! Tour is supported by the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery.
To book tickets please visit: https://queensfilmtheatre.com
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