The 20th Película Spanish Film Festival will be held in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia from October 1 to 10, 2021. It will showcase a selection of contemporary Spanish and Latin American movies online for free, owing to the closure of cinemas due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Festival opens on October 1 with El Cover, a musical comedy and debut film of actor Secun de la Rosa. Other films in the line-up are Invisibles, Una vez más, Tristesse, and the documentaries Oscuro y Lucientes, and Antonio Machado, Los días azules. The official entries also include dramas such as 15 horas, Ane, and A este lado del mundo, a bitter and intelligent depiction of immigration. Película will also feature Latin American films such as the Mexican documentary Observar las aves and Lina de Lima. All films will be available with English subtitles.
Like in the previous editions, spectators may vote for their favourite films in the Audience Choice Awards. Since its establishment in 2004, it has been a tradition in the Festival, kept alive even on its transition online. In its 20th edition, spectators can rate the films right after having viewed them. The movie with the highest ratings will receive this year’s Audience Choice Award and will be screened again on October 10 at 6:00 PM on the Festival’s platform.
Aside from film screenings, Película will offer free webinars and online talks with the directors of the films presented in the Festival and professionals in the audiovisual industry. On October 4, there will be a round-table discussion on the possibilities of co-production of Asian movies in Europe and Spanish films in Asia.
For the 20th edition of Película, the Department of European Languages of the University of the Philippines Diliman is holding a contest of film reviews in Spanish, open to students of Spanish in the Philippines.
The Película Spanish Film Festival is presented by the Instituto Cervantes in Manila and Sydney and the Spanish Embassies in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia.