SPAIN checks in
Four recent award-winners are set for Spanish Film Week in Bangkok
SPAIN’S PLACE in the world is surveyed in a selection of four recent award-winning movies that are set to screen in Spanish Film Week next week in Bangkok.
Presented by the Embassy of Spain in collaboration with SF Cinemas, the mini-fest has the action drama “El Nino”, the quirky thriller “Magical Girl”, light-hearted romance in “10,000 KM” and the romantic drama “Loreak”.
Winner of four Goya Awards (Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars), “El Nino” has a hard-nosed Spanish detective and his female partner tangling with drug smugglers in Gibraltar, that bottleneck of the globe where Africa and Europe are a stone’s throw apart. While the two cops track a dangerous criminal known as “the Englishman” (portrayed with appropriate menace by Ian McShane), a trio of youngsters enter the marijuana trade in hopes of raising the cash they need to open a bar.
Directed by Daniel Monzon, “El Nino” was nominated for more than a dozen Goyas, including best director, original screenplay and supporting actor and actress for Eduard Fernandez and Barbara Lennie. It won prizes for production supervision, sound, special effects and song.
Anime-obessed Bangkokians will likely feel a connection to “Magical Girl”, the Goya Award-winning cult hit about the father of a terminally ill girl working to make true his daughter’s last wish – to have a dress inspired by the main character from “Magical Girl Yukiko”, a Japanese animated TV series. As the dad is pushed to the brink in his quest for the expensive dress, he meets various weirdos, among them a vomit-spewing femme fatale (portrayed by the Goya-winning Lennie) and an unstable ex-con.
Long-distance relationships and the lighter side of romance are examined in “10,000 KM”, about Alex and Sergi, a young Barcelona couple who are planning to have a baby. Their plans hit a snag when Alex is offered a once-in-a-lifetime job offer to work as a photographer in Los Angeles. It’ll take more than modern technology to keep them together. With festival appearances that included South by Southwest and Palm Springs, “10,000 KM” charmed critics and won several awards, including the Goya for Best New Director for Carlos Marques-Marcet.
And there’s more romance in the Basque-language “Loreak” (“Flowers”), in which an unfulfilled married woman begins receiving weekly deliveries of flowers. Her story slowly intertwines with that of a toll-booth attendant and her crane-operator husband. The sophomore feature from the “In 80 Days” duo of Jose Mari Goenaga and Jon Garano, “Loreak” won prizes at festivals in San Sebastian and Palm Springs, and was a nominee for best film at the Goyas.
EN ESPANOL
Spanish Film Week runs from next Thursday until November 8 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld in Bangkok.
Tickets are Bt120. For bookings, check www.sfcinemacity.com or call (02) 268 8888.
