¡Viva! celebrates Spanish-language film at Cornerhouse

Ben East discovers that Manchester is the only place to experience what Spanish and Latin American film has to offer

The nomination of La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) for an Oscar at last Sunday’s ceremony proves that Spanish film is in rude health. Broken Embraces, the strange Pedro Almodóvar love story starring Penelope Cruz, made waves last year while, more recently, horror films El Orfanato and [Rec] have all crossed over into the mainstream. It’s the perfect time, then, for another installment in the fiesta of Spanish and Latin American cinema that is Cornerhouse’s ¡Viva! Film Festival.

El Orfanato and [Rec] were both previewed at ¡Viva! before their general UK releases. La Teta Asustada closes this year’s festival on 27 March. So there’s a definite sense that ¡Viva!, now in its 16th year, is gradually building an international reputation as the festival for Spanish language films in the English-speaking world. Although Cornerhouse’s Rachel Hayward and her team happily plough through hundreds of Spanish movies every year, distributors are now lobbying the festival to feature their films.

This year, ¡Viva! has expanded to a 22-day extravaganza, allowing for more weekend events. And the decision not to tour the best of ¡Viva! around the country’s art-house cinemas this time also means Manchester is really the only place to experience what Spanish and Latin American film has to offer in 2010.

If the opening film last Saturday, Solo Quiero Caminar, was an enjoyably unsubtle revenge thriller with a twist, then the other, more sensitive side of Spanish film-making is revealed in Petit Indi (20 March) next weekend. Palm D’Or-nominated Catalan director Marc Recha explores the life of a down on his luck teenager who only has birds and an injured fox for friends, but gets an opportunity to make some vital cash. If that sounds a little like the Ken Loach masterpiece Kes, then perhaps that’s Recha’s intention – and you can ask him yourself at the post screening Q&A.

The same weekend, the quirkier side of Spanish film-making is revealed in Los Aňos Desnudos: Clasificada S. Three thirtysomething sex film actresses – stars of a very prevalent industry in the years immediately after Franco’s death in 1975  –  battle with their ‘art’ in various amusing, self-destructive and poignant ways. Fans of Boogie Nights will find much to like here.

Later in March, check out ¡Viva! favourite Carlos Sorin’s latest film La Ventana (19 and 21 March), a beautiful study of a Patagonian writer coming to the end of his life. And on 22 March, a series of shorts from one of the masters of European silent cinema, Segundo De Chomón, is presented with live musical accompaniment from art rockers Die Kunst.

All of which leaves the final weekend, filled, aptly, with three films that we may well hear a lot more of this year: Gigante (26 March), a Uruguayan film following a supermarket security guard’s obsessions with a cleaner; Plan B (27 March) a modern Argentinian romance, and, of course, the Oscar-nominated La Teta Asustada. An allegorical Spanish/Peruvian collaboration investigating the strange illnesses women suffered during Peru’s war of terrorism, it says everything about the allure of Spanish and Latin American film – and everything about the trailblazing, intriguing, and fascinating ¡Viva! Film Festival.

Ben East is an arts journalist based in Manchester who has written for Metro, The Observer, FHM, Filmstar and The Word magazine. Images (top to bottom): Gigante, The Milk of Sorrow, both courtesy Cornerhouse.

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