L.A. OLA: NYC Edition. Spanish Contemporary Cinema Showcase
June 2- 4, 2017 | Anthology Film Archives
L.A. OLA: NYC EDITION is a showcase of the best contemporary independent cinema from Spain. The Spanish filmmaking scene is emerging as one of the most fertile and successful in Europe with a new generation of young Spanish filmmakers who are winning great acclaim at prestigious international film festivals (such as Locarno, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Cannes). Despite their critical success, these groundbreaking Spanish films have struggled to gain access to the traditional distribution channels. L.A. OLA aims to create a bridge between Spain and the U.S. to address this problem, giving exposure to all these extraordinary films in the capitals of culture on this side of the Atlantic.
For three consecutive years, L.A. OLA has provided Los Angeles with a window into the most innovative Spanish cinema; and now the festival hits the East Coast! L.A. OLA NYC is a not-to-be-missed event for devotees of contemporary world cinema, and a meeting point for both Europeans and New Yorkers.
L.A. OLA: NYC EDITION is a project of La Panda Productions and Playtime Audiovisuales, directed by Rocio Mesa with the collaboration of Spain Fresh and the support of Curtocircuito, MUBI,the Consulate General of Spain, AC/E and Fundacion SGAE. Sponsored by Cervezas Alhambra.
L.A. OLA: NYC EDITION is kindly hosted at Anthology Film Archives. Click here for info, directions and tickets.
Program
ÀGATA’S FRIENDS
Alba Cros, Marta Verheyen, Laura Rius, and Laia Alabart
2015, 70 min, digital.
In Catalan and Spanish with English subtitles.
June 2 at 6:30 PM
Opening Night. Followed by Q&A with the director Laura Rius
June 4 at 5:45 PM
LES AMIGUES DE L’ÀGATA is a thoughtful and delicate portrait of four young friends through the eyes of Àgata. Now in her first year at university, Àgata finds her relationship with her school friends transformed, both in their daily lives in Barcelona as well as during a trip to the Costa Brava. For this exceptional final thesis film, all four directors shared in the various film production roles, with the assistance of mentors including Isaki Lacuesta and Elías León Siminiani.
ESA SENSACIÓN
Juan Cavestany, Pablo Hernando, and Julián Génisson
2015, 79 min, digital.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
June 2 at 8:30 PM
NYC Premier, followed by an opening reception sponsored by Cervezas Alhambra.
In this highly original and comical film, three Spanish directors tell three stories: about a woman who becomes passionately excited by inanimate objects throughout the city (a parking meter, a metal bridge, etc); a man who follows his father in order to unravel his secret; and a couple of friends who suddenly, as if felled by a virus, display improper behavior against their will. These three interwoven storylines seem at first sight to have little to do with each other, but in each the characters are visited by an unexpected and strangely addictive sensation, which knocks them out of their daily routine and forces them to come to terms with issues such as love, faith, and human will.
NO COW ON ICE
Eloy Domínguez Serén
2015, 63 min, digital.
In Swedish and Galician with English subtitles.
June 3 at 5:45 PM
“Language and landscape as a gateway to a new life.” A young Galician emigrates to Sweden, where he performs several part-time jobs while trying to embark on a film career. The challenge of learning a new language and the fascination of an unusual landscape soon become two fundamental stimuli in the face of the difficulties of adapting to a new country. Inspired in part by Jonas Mekas (both by his memoir, “I Had Nowhere to Go,” and his pioneering diary films), Domínguez Serén utilizes his constant documentation of his new habitat, his various trades, and his new relationships, to reflect on his new status as an immigrant.
OLEG AND THE RARE ARTS
Andrés Duque
2016, 70 min, digital.
In Russian with English subtitles.
June 3 at 8:00 PM
Several biographical facts: Oleg Nikolayevich Karavaychuk (1927-2016) played the piano for Stalin as a child prodigy, attended the Leningrad Conservatory, and in the course of his career primarily wrote music for theatre and film – for instance, for Paradjanov and Muratova. In Russia, he is admired for his music and his playing, but also for his unique and eccentric personality. At the age of 89, Karavaychuk is still a controversial and puzzling figure in Russian culture. Who is this man, who looks as if he stepped out of a story by Gogol? The beautiful film that Andrés Duque has made about him is a gift to the viewer, a gift from an old artist who wants to be reconciled with the world and who transports us away from reality with words, gestures, and piano playing, free of social conventions, to a world where clashing dissonants have a liberating beauty.
MIMOSAS
Oliver Laxe
2016, 96 min, 16mm-to-digital.
In Arabic with English subtitles.
June 4 at 8:00 PM
Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film is a breathtakingly shot ‘Eastern western’ that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Somewhere in the desert, a caravan is escorting an elderly sheik to the village where he was born. His last wish is to be buried with his loved ones. But death does not wait. Without their leader, the company grows fearful. And at the foot of a mountain pass, they refuse to continue, entrusting the body to two men who agree to carry on and bring it to its final destination. But who are these men? And do they really know the way? Meanwhile, in another world, a mysterious young man is chosen to find the caravan. Richly suggestive and profoundly hypnotic, MIMOSAS is a head-scratcher whose meanings remain elusive even as its imagery and structural gambits lodge deeply in your mind.
LIST OF SHOR FILMS, *curated by Curtocircuito
LA DISCO RESPLANDECE | THE DISCO SHINES
Chema García Ibarra | 2016 | Turkey - Spain
June 2 at 6:30 PM
June 4 at 5:45 PM
The shadow of the mountain grows as the evening falls. Five lads get ready for the evening: they have booze, music and a car. It doesn’t matter if the disco shut down years ago.
DECORADO | SCENERY
Alberto Vázquez | 2016 | Spain, France
June 2 at 8:30 PM
The world is a wonderful stage, but the casting is deplorable. Winner of a Goya Award for Best Animated Short Film, nominated at AFI Fest 2016.
NEW MADRID
Natalia Marin | 2016 | Spain
June 3 at 5:45 PM
New Madrid is an experimental essay on cities built as a simulacrum and the failed utopia as a result of the experiment on the eight towns called the United States of Madrid.
NUESTRA AMIGA LA LUNA | OUR FRIEND THE MOON
Velasco Broca | 2016 | Spain
June 3 at 8:00 PM
Hadji is a disabled young Hindu man who lives humbly on the banks of the Ganges River. After losing what little he had, he is accepted as a disciple by a strange spiritual leader of Russian origin. This alliance will lead them to some bizarre events that will have consequences through a synchronous principle in other parts of the West. This short film is inspired by the third century Gnostic text The Hymn of the Pearl.
FAJR
Lois Patiño | 2016 | Spain
June 4 at 8:00 PM
In the Moroccan desert, the night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate the landscape. From the abstraction of the night, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates the gaze and duration densifies it. The adhan (muslim call to pray) sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolve into the desert.