Women’s month is celebrated at the Cervantes Institute with a series of films that bring to the public’s attention a series of cinematic creations signed by artists from the Hispanic cultural space.
The new edition of the series of films dedicated to women’s culture and productions directed by women, brought together under the motto “Female Space”, is curated by Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona. This year’s edition brings together four feature film sessions – three documentaries and a fiction film, as well as a series of short films, which will be able to be viewed in the Auditorium Hall of the Cervantes Institute in Bucharest (Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta 38) on the dates of 4 , 8, 11, 18 and 25 March 2024, starting at 19.00.
Access to screenings is free, subject to availability.
This year’s series of films, “Female Space”, aims to explore less common stories through audiovisual fiction and bring to the big screen characters who, although ordinary, hide lives full of passion and imagination.
“With each film in this series, we will approach stories that are both personal micro-histories, but also histories of a society: female moviegoers who, through their passion, support cinema, cabaret as a micro-universe in which networks of support, or the transformation of a mother-daughter relationship over the years. The films that make up this program have been selected from the creations of the last decade – both fiction and non-fiction – from Spain and Latin America. All the selected female directors showed both a great desire for self-knowledge and communion through the image and the word”, declared the curators of the series, the representatives of the Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona, an institution which in 2024 celebrates three uninterrupted decades of activity.
Programme
🔴 March 4 – La Mami by Laura Herrero Garvín (2019, Spain and Mexico, 80 min.) The documentary follows the daily life of the women who work as hostesses at the Barba Azul Cabaret in Mexico City, in particular Madam Olga, known as “Mami”: a former cabaret dancer with a career spanning over 45 years in the back, she now runs the women’s bathroom, where she gives the girls support and balance. Mami – a real gem, a social, ethical and terribly human portrait of the world of housemaids.
🔴 March 8 – Viaje al cuarto de una madre | Journey to a Mother’s Room, by Celia Rico (2018, Spain, 94 min.) Celia Rico’s debut feature was a resounding success on the Spanish film scene. It received 18 nominations for various awards and won the Youth Award at the San Sebastian Festival and the Asecan Award for Best Film. The masterful interpretation of the relationship between a mother and daughter by two outstanding actresses, Lola Dueñas and Anna Castillo, complemented the narrative rigor and excellent staging of this sample of “quality cinematography”.
🔴 March 11 – Women’s short films:
🔹 Oro rojo| Red Gold, by Carme Gomila (Spain, 2021, 12 min.) The animated short tells the story of three Moroccan immigrant women who work in the fields in Huelva. Through this story, the film denounces various social issues such as environmental exploitation, racism and capitalism.
🔹 Escamas | Shedding Skin, by Katherina Harder (Spain, 2020, 17 min.) A short film that explores the intimacy of people and the place that images occupy in their perception of the world. After a breast mastectomy, Alicia can no longer identify with her own body. Following a domestic accident, she meets her new neighbor, Lucia, a transsexual woman. Each will find in the other a support in the difficult process of self-discovery and acceptance.
🔹 Sorda | Deaf, by Nuria Muñoz Ortiz and Eva Libertad (Spain, 2021, 21 min.) The first short film filmed in sign language nominated for the Goya Awards, in which the two filmmakers address the personal conflict of the protagonist, played by the deaf actress Miriam Garlo – Eva Libertad’s sister – in her play with sound and hearing, which become characters in the story. How can a deaf woman cope with a prejudiced society? – this is the question that crosses the cinematic project.
🔴 March 18 – Las Cinéphilas | Cinephile, by María Álvarez (Argentina, 2017, 71 min.) This feature-length documentary, followed by Timpul pierdut (2020) and Apropiatele (2021), was the first in a trilogy about art, its meaning over time and its role in giving meaning to people’s lives, especially women’s. The documentary tells the story of three retired women who live in Buenos Aires, Madrid and Montevideo. Although separated by a great geographical distance, all three share a passion for cinematography. In front of the camera, they offer us a very special conversation, which we rarely stop to listen to, and which dismantles the stereotypes of the world of culture and cinema, a world perceived as belonging to young people and men.
🔴 March 25 – Africa 815, by Pilar Monsell (Spain, 2015, 66 min.) Pilar Monsell’s archival and experimental work with her production company, Proxémica, has placed this filmmaker at the forefront of creative documentary. Africa 815, her first feature film, received numerous nominations and awards. By creating this documentary film, the author shows great courage by rewriting the complex story of her father from her own point of view, with the help of his photographs and diaries during his military service in the Spanish colony of the Sahara in 1964.