(ANSAmed) - Rome, May 3 - From Rome to Milan up all the way to Trieste, the Spanish Film Festival is back. For the 9th edition, this year's the guest of honour is Marisa Paredes, among the most acclaimed Spanish actresses and muse of Pedro Almodovar.
First stop, the Farnese Persol Cinema in Rome's Campo de' Fiori, from May 5-10; followed by Milan's Auditorium San Fedele from May 27-29; and finally the Ariston Cinema in Trieste on May 30 and 31. The festival's main category, La Nueva Ola, will present the best films from the latest season.
Among these are "A Cambio de Nada", the dazzling debut from director Daniel Guzman, which will be screened in Rome, fresh from winning two Goya Awards (Best Directorial Debut and Best New Actor for Miguel Herran).
The festival's sneak previews include "Stella Cadente", the latest film from one of the most multifaceted names in Spanish cinema, Lluis Miarro, scheduled for distribution in Italy on May 8.
Another feature-length film on the programme is Carlos Vermut's "Magical Girl", which won Best Film and Best Director at the San Sebastian Festival and won the Goya Award for Best Actress for Barbara Lennie.
Pedro Almodovar himself called the movie "a gem: the biggest revelation of Spanish cinema of the past 20 years".
Another preview is "Hablar" directed by Joaquin Oristrell, a choral film that presents a cast of stars from recent Spanish films, set in a night immersed in the streets of Madrid.
In its Latinoamericana subcategory, La Nueva Ola pays tribute to Mexico, in cooperation with the Mexican Embassy, and to Cuba, in cooperation with the Film Industry Foundation. The film chosen to represent intense Mexican cinematography is "Gueros" directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios (screenings both in Rome and Milan), the pride of Mexico's very new arthouse film scene.
The tribute to Cuba, on the other hand, takes its inspiration from the 30th anniversary of the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television, the famed film school founded in 1986 by Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri, Cuban director Julio Garcia Espinosa, and Nobel prize-winning Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with the goal of "training active filmmakers who join at a high level aesthetics and technique, an ethical concept, a critical vision of the world, a clear position in the face of barbarism, injustice, oppression, an ability to dream, a utopia". Organised by EXITmed!a and directed by Iris Martin-Peralta and Federico Sartori, the festival receives its support from major Spanish institutions: the Spanish Embassy, ICAA, Accion Cultural Espanola, the Spain Tourism Board, the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, and the Cervantes Institute in Rome and Milan.(ANSAmed).
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