Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Spain”
Critically acclaimed as one of Almodóvar’s best and most personal films in years, Pain and Glory follows the existential odyssey of a filmmaker (Antonio Banderas) who, in the autumn of his life, is afflicted with a cluster of physical ailments and finds himself drifting into uncharted, drug-infested waters.
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Sunday, August 11th, followed by post-screening discussion with Guillermo Fesser
Filmed over six years, The Silence of Others reveals the epic struggle of victims of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under General Franco, as they organize a groundbreaking international lawsuit and fight a “pact of forgetting” around the crimes they suffered. A powerful and poetic cautionary tale about fascism, and the dangers of forgetting the past.
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Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, and Ricardo Darín star in this captivating tale of suspicion, money, and kin.
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The Black Maria Film Festival returns to Upstate Films Friday July 27th! Named after Thomas Edison’s film studio, dubbed the “Black Maria” because of its resemblance to the black-box police paddy wagons of the same name, the program features a collection of award-winning works — including animation, narrative, and documentary films chosen by the festival jury. Immediately following the screening, Festival Director Jane Steuerwald will conduct a Q & A with the audience. The show begins at 8:15pm and will take place at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck.
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Charming, intimate, and warm-hearted, School Life provides an empathetic portrait of the work gifted teachers do to help children flourish.
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Take a trip, another gastronomic-quip-laden-celeb impressions trip, with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as they eat their way through sunny Spain while honing their one-upmanship skills.
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What if Godzilla were a projection of your issues? That’s the question posed by Colossal, a film that fuses comedy with the Japanese kaiju genre to tell the story of an unemployed train wreck (Anne Hathaway) who accidentally unleashes her angst on South Korea in the form of a gigantic quasi-reptilian monster.
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The Woodstock Film Festival is proud to present a special free screening of THE PROMISE on Saturday April 15 at 1 pm atUpstate Films in Woodstock. Producer Bill Horberg will attend for Q&A following the screening.
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*Golden Globe nominee – Best Foreign Language Feature
Inspired by a collection of short stories by writer Alice Munro, Pedro Almodóvar’s (Talk to Me, Volver, High Heels, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother) latest film is as stylish as it is substantive. The story of a mother searching for her estranged daughter, Julieta reflects on the magic of chance encounters and the fragility of relationships in the face of long-buried secrets.
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For the 12th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films. This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A hit with audiences around the country, don’t miss this year’s selection of Live Action Shorts – the weekend of February 10th at Upstate Films. Click below for information on the program. (Running Time: 130 mins)
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| Campy and chaotic, with supernatural twists and melodramatic turns, Pedro (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother, Volver) Almodovar’s latest is a rollicking farce about a group who finds themselves in a precarious situation when the landing gear fails on their flight from Spain to Mexico City. | |||||||||||||
| While the stewards sedate the entire economy class, they devote themselves body and soul to making their elite clientele happy as they wait for a solution. Alert to the danger they are in, an actor, a psychic, a dominatrix, a hit man, and a pair of newlyweds pour on the tequila, turning business class into a den of dancing, lip syncing, sensational confessions, and mile-high romance. It’s crazy fun. Yet the high stakes subplots of the business elite bubble with social resonance. Having endured Spain’s economic crash, the characters experience catharsis as they face a literal one at high velocity. In Spanish with subtitles. | |||||||||||||
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| Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Feature. In 1940’s Cuba, Chico is a young piano player with big dreams, and Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. United by music and desire, the duo pulses with life as they chase their dreams from Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood, and Las Vegas. | |||||||||||||
| Seen through pen-and-ink drawings, their on-again, off-again romance is so nostalgic and persuasive it feels almost iconic. The picture’s real achievement though, is the warmth it brings to the music that animates the lives of its characters. With an original soundtrack by legendary Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita features the music of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, and others. Containing enough adult subject matter that it’s definitely not for the young, the film is so passionate about the Latin and big-band music of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s that it’ll make anyone who grew up listening to those vibrant rhythms feel like a kid again. In Spanish with subtitles. | |||||||||||||
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| Pedro Almodóvar, the seemingly perennial bad boy of world cinema, again tells a lushly cinematic story about sexual identity, anxiety, betrayal; this time wrapped in the director’s version of gothicy horror, and based on Tarantula, a novel by Thierry Jonquet. | ||||||||||||
| Ever since his wife was fatally burned in a car crash, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), an eminent plastic surgeon, living and working in his mansion outside Toledo, Spain, has dedicated himself to creating a synthetic form of skin. To do so, he’s needed three things: no scruples, an accomplice and a human guinea pig. At a conference he reports to his colleagues that after 12 years of work, he’s made a breakthrough, a skin that’s a real shield against every assault. Told with precise flash-forwards and flashbacks, with his typical lush visual palette, his love for family secrets, and his fascination with gender identity, Almodovar takes us on a crazy journey. Beauty may be skin deep, but one’s soul is not so easily tampered with. Cast includes Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet. | ||||||||||||
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| Almodóvar’s noirish new film, starring Penélope Cruz, is a four-way tale of amour-fou, dealing with some of his signature themes – fate, guilt, power, and the father/son dynamic. | ||||||
| At the center of this affecting feature is Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar), a screenwriter and film director who takes on a pseudonym when he goes blind. His current reality conceals a fascinating and layered past, which Almodóvar spends much of his film detailing. The film starts time-shifting upon news that the producer of Mateo’s film, and his rival for actress Lena (Cruz), has died. But it is the young man on his doorstep that now intrigues Mateo. Almodóvar delves into and uncovers the secrets of everyone’s pasts in this steamy, scheming and romantic melodrama. In Spanish with subtitles. | ||||||
| R / 128 mins. | ||||||
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March 16-19
Mon & Tues 6:00
Wed & Thurs 8:30
ENDS THURSDAY!!
(Spain / 1990 / dir by Pere Portabella)
Audaciously experimental, Warsaw Bridge portrays a romantic triangle between a novelist, a conductor, and a marine-biology professor who are anecdotally linked to the elusive story of a scuba diver found dead in a burning forest.
While the mystery of the diver’s death is explained, its resolution is not really the point of the film. Rather, the story and its characters function abstractly to introduce larger ideas about fate, chance and will before the backdrop of history, science, art, and music. As the film unravels, it plays out as a dream in a series of exquisite interludes. The conductor leads a symphony in the streets performed by musicians connected via video monitors. The biology professor plays an architecturally ingenious game of verbal chess in a staircase. And two singers belt out opera amidst forklifts, ice blocks, and dead sharks in a fish market. Truly original, Warsaw Bridge isn’t just something to watch. It provides an experience to savor that continues to surprise and delight long after it leaves the screen
unrated / 85 mins
March 16-19
Mon & Tues 8:30
Wed & Thurs 6:00
ENDS THURSDAY!!
(Spain / 2007 / dir by Pere Portabella)
Bach’s music comes to new life in this intriguing blend of drama, documentary, and surrealist whimsy.
Rattling off Goldberg Variations, The Silence Before Bach tickles the senses with a series of visually stunning vignettes: a truck driver plays Bach on harmonica; several dozen cellists perform suites on a speeding subway car; and Felix Mendelssohn (Daniel Ligorio) discovers the sheet music for “St. Matthew’s Passion” wrapped around a piece of raw meat. As the film moves fluidly from Spain to Germany and from historical to contemporary times, its insights on Bach and European identity emerge as brilliantly executed theme and counterpoint. The scenes Portabella paints are as glorious as Bach’s music, and his playful and profound imagination invites a willingness to enter into this work shaped by visual and aural metaphor.
unrated / 102 mins
