Instituto Cervantes

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE María del Puy Alvarado, often collaborating with director Álvaro Giménez Sarmiento, has produced films in a variety of genres. In Pulse, a thriller shot in Madrid but set in the Ukraine in late 2008, the body of 14-year-old Anna Skobalski is found on the outskirts of Kiev. 2013; Spanish with English subtitles; 17 minutes; not rated. Free community event During April, Instituto Cervantes presents the work of four filmmakers in collaboration with Alcine, the film festival (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE Antonio Muñoz Molina, el oficio del escritor, a documentary produced by María del Puy Alvarado and directed by Álvaro Giménez Sarmiento, is a richly revealing portrait of Andalusian writer and professor Antonio Muñoz Molina. One of the great figures of contemporary literature and a former director of Instituto Cervantes’ New York office, Muñoz Molina has divided his time between Madrid and New York for many years.   2014; Spanish with English subtitles; 60 minutes; not (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE El cuarto reino: El reino de los plásticos, by Adán Aliaga and Álex Lora, is set in a can collection and recycling center in a New York City neighborhood. At “Sure We Can,” founded by Basque nun Ana Martínez, homeless people can come to exchange recyclables that they have collected for a few dollars. Through René, an undocumented worker from Mexico who works and sleeps at the center, and the relationships he establishes with his (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE Baracoa, by Pablo Briones and The Moving Picture Boys (Sean Clark and Jace Freeman), documents the lifelong friendship between nine-year-old Leonel and thirteen-year-old Antúan, two boys who live in Pueblo Textil, a small village in the Cuban countryside. During the hot summer holidays, the boys explore the isolated areas surrounding the town, bonding through games, fights, and simple pleasures, as well as conversations about everyday life and existential questions. But just as Cuban society is (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE Una corriente salvaje, Nuria Ibañez’ third feature film, explores the daily lives and the burgeoning relationship of two men who have chosen to live on an isolated beach in Baja California, Mexico, leaving their separate pasts behind, living off the grid, and fishing to survive. Alone with only the sand and water for company, Omar and Chilo become unlikely friends as they harvest food from the ocean, share meals together, and talk late into the (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE An illustrious American rocket scientist, wearied of working on atomic bombs and increasingly concerned about their destructive potential, flees the country to find refuge in Calabuch, a small village on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, in Berlanga’s 1956 film of the same name. First taken for a smuggler’s accomplice and then for a kindly tramp, he soon blends into the everyday life of the community, but when he helps his neighbors win a fireworks competition, the international authorities (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE In Berlanga’s 1961 film Plácido, an impoverished truck driver in rural Spain becomes involved in a Christmas Eve “Invite a poor person to dinner” event sponsored by a cookware manufacturer. The fast-paced, darkly comic farce takes a satirical look at the true meaning of charity, contrasting charity from the head—the cold, calculated kind practiced by a hypocritical upper class—with charity from the heart. Spain; 1961; Spanish with English subtitles; 85 minutes; not rated. Free community event (more...)

12 pm (MST) Available for 48 hours Instituto Cervantes Vimeo Channel HERE The 1981 film Patrimonio nacional is the second in Berlanga’s “trilogía Nacional,”co-written late in his career with acclaimed screenwriter Rafael Azcona. It is preceded by La escopeta nacional and followed by Nacional III. After the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of the monarchy, the Marquis of Leguineche returns with his son to his palace in the heart of Madrid, intending to regain his position among the city’s aristocracy, and gain access to the (more...)