30th ¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Festival at HOME
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
For thirty years now, ¡Viva! Festival has been leading the charge for Spanish language film in the UK, introducing us to the most exciting emerging filmmakers and presenting visions of life from Spain and Latin America. The festival has grown and evolved over the years, but remains keenly eclectic, international, open and inviting to film fans and the culturally curious, as well as Spanish language learners and native speakers.
The thirtieth edition is no different, with 27 features and 10 short films on the bill, including multiple UK premieres, Q&As with filmmakers and introductions by experts. For the opening night (Fri 5 April) there’s a trip to Andalusia for Rocio Mesa’s fantastical coming-of-age story Secaderos (Tobacco Barns) which launches a programme of films with an emphasis on warm-hearted comedies, alongside deeper dives and more weighty dramas for balance.
As always at ¡Viva!, part of the pleasure is in the globetrotting nature of the selection. Martín Rejtman’s La Práctica (The Practice) takes us to Chile for a deadpan comedy about an divorced Argentinian yoga instructor. Mexican filmmaker Ángeles Cruz’s Valentina o la serenidad (Valentina or Serenity) tells a story of love and grief as the imaginative nine-year-old Valentina is faced with tragedy. While Lucía Alemany’s raucous comedy Mari(dos) (Co-Husbands) borrows from the Western genre as two men compete against one another in a Pyrenean town.
It’s worth digging in yourself to explore the full breadth of ¡Viva!’s 2024 offering, but as in previous years there’s more than just new cinema to discover.
There will also be plenty of opportunities to hear from the filmmakers directly. Amongst numerous Q&A’s scheduled for this year’s festival, audiences can see Un Cel de plom (Ashes in the Sky) — a gripping historical drama recounting the life of Catalan, feminist and anti-Nazi saboteur Neus Català — and hear from writer-director Miquel Romans on Sunday 21 April.
Debut filmmaker Felipe Holguín Caro will be on hand at the Wednesday 24 April screening of La Suprema, a spirited drama about an Afro-Colombian teenager in a remote Caribbean village that has been erased from maps; and writer-director Arantxa Echevarría will answer questions about Chinas, set in Madrid’s Chinatown, on Monday 15 April.
With so many new films in the programme, it’s worth digging in yourself to explore the full breadth of ¡Viva!’s 2024 offering, but as in previous years there’s more than just new cinema to discover.
In the theatre, the award-winning REWIND uses visceral music, energetic movement, puppetry, projection and innovative lighting in a show that draws from testimonies of human rights abuses in Latin America. Then there’s the selection of archive film to (re)discover, including treats from Spanish maestros Víctor Erice and Juan Antonio Bardem, Argentine feminist pioneer María Luisa Bemberg, and longtime ¡Viva! favourite Álex de la Iglesia.
