The Zinemateka opens the 2022 programme with a cycle dedicated to Icíar Bollaín, as a paradigm of a generation of directors who have opened a divide and with whom Spanish cinema has acquired a transnational character.
The journey through her filmography begins with her first feature film "Hello, are you alone?" (1995) and ends with "Maixabel" (2021), her latest work, awarded the Irizar Basque Film Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival.
Description:
PROGRAMME
12th-13th January - "Hola, ¿estás sola?" (1995). The story of a journey and a friendship between two twenty-year-old girls who share a past without affection, a present in which they have nothing to lose, and a future as open as they want. During their trip they will share everything. Including Olaf, a Russian who speaks nothing but his language.
19th-20th January - "Flores de otro mundo"(1999). Patricia, a Dominican, is looking for a home and economic security that her illegal immigrant status does not allow her to achieve in Madrid. Milady, a twenty-year-old Cuban, dreams of traveling the world. Marirrosi, a woman from Bilbao with a home and a job, lives in complete loneliness, a loneliness like the one shared by Alfonso, Damián and Carmelo, residents of Santa Eulalia, a town without marriageable women or a future. Thanks to a party organized by the town's bachelors, they meet each other, setting the stage for a bittersweet story of sometimes impossible coexistence.
26th-27th January - "Te doy mis ojos" (2003). One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. She only brings four things with her and her son Juan. She is escaping from Antonio, a husband who has mistreated her throughout their 9 year marriage. Antonio soon goes out to look for her. Pilar is his light, he says, and also, “she has given him her eyes.”
2nd-3rd February - "Mataharis" (2007). Carmen, Inés and Eva are private detectives but they do not wear hats or guns, instead they do the shopping, change diapers and try to keep their partner. While they work uncovering other people's secrets, the three of them will discover their own lies that they have not been able to see and truths that are best left unrevealed.
9th-10th February - "También la lluvia" (2010). Cochabamba, Bolivia. Year 2000, Sebastián (Gael García Bernal) and Costa (Luis Tosar) have set out to make a film about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America. While Sebastián, the director, tries to demystify the character by presenting him as an ambitious and unscrupulous man; Costa, the producer, only cares about trimming the film to their modest budget; this is precisely why he chooses Bolivia, for being one of the cheapest countries with the largest indigenous population in Latin America. The film is shot in Cochabamba, where the privatization and sale of water to a multinational company sows such unrest among the population that it will result in the sadly famous Bolivian Water War (April 2000).
16th-17th February - "Katmandú, un espejo en el cielo" (2011). Laia, a young Catalan teacher, moves to Kathmandu to work in a school. There, in addition to the misery, she discovers a bleak educational panorama that excludes the most needed. After regretfully marrying for convenience to legalize her status, she embarks on an ambitious educational project in the city's shanty towns, although she soon realizes that she needs help to make it happen. At the same time, unexpectedly, she falls in love with her husband. Following Sharmila, a young native teacher, she gets a deeper understanding of Nepalese society and even herself.
23rd-24th February - "En tierra extraña" (2014).
A documentary that addresses the case of young Spanish emigrants who, due to the deep economic crisis in Spain, have gone abroad, in this case to the city of Edinburgh, in search of a better future.
2nd-3rd March - "El olivo" (2016). Alma is 20 years old and adores her grandfather, a man who has not spoken for years. When the old man also refuses to eat, the girl decides to recover the ancient tree that the family sold against his will. But for this, she needs the help of her uncle, a victim of the crisis, her friend Rafa and the entire town. The problem is knowing where the olive tree is in Europe.
9th-10th March - "Yuli" (2018). A film about Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta, a temporary journey through his life, a dance legend and the first black dancer to play some of the most famous ballet roles, originally written for whites, in companies such as the Houston Ballet or the Royal Ballet in London (where he has been a lead dancer for over 15 years). It tells the story of his difficult childhood through to his coming of age, a stage in his life carried out by the dancer himself, who, despite his success and international recognition, never forgot his origins.
16th-17th March - "La boda de Rosa" (2020). About to turn 45, Rosa realizes that she has always lived for others and decides to leave, leave everything and press the nuclear button. She wants to take control over her own life, and fulfil her dream of owning her own business. But she will soon discover that her father, brothers and daughter have other plans, and that changing your life is not so easy if it is not in the family script.
23rd-24th March - "Maixabel" (2021). Maixabel Lasa lost her husband, Juan María Jaúregui, assassinated by ETA in 2000. Eleven years later, she receives an unusual request: one of the assassins has asked to meet with her in the Nanclares de la Oca/Álava prison), where he is serving his sentence after breaking his ties with the terrorist group. Despite the doubts and the immense pain, Maixabel agrees to meet face-to-face with the people who in cold blood ended the life of her partner since the age of sixteen.
