Event

Tuesday 07 August, 22:00

Gandules’12 - Gas Natural Fenosa

Nights ten years

Tuesday 7 August

Vénus Noire, Abdel Kechiche, 2010 / 159 min / 35 mm / France, Belgium / In English and French, with English and Catalan subtitles
Not recommended for under-18s

Session programmed by Ángel Quintana

Paris, the Royal Academy of Medicine, 1817. “I have never before seen a human head that is like that of an ape”, says anatomist Georges Cuvier, over the lifeless body of Saartjie Baartman (Yahima Torres, in the film). A group of colleagues applaud his remark. Seven years previously, Saartjie arrived from South Africa with her godfather Caezar to offer her body to the ghoulish London public who paid to visit human zoos. In this way, Saartjie, the Black Venus, became at once a free woman and a slave.


Wednesday 8 August

Rent-a-cat, Naoko Ogigami, 2011 / 110 min / video / Japan / In Japanese, with English and Catalan subtitles

Session programmed by Nuria Vidal

Sayoko walks the embankments of the river with her cats in a cart, a parasol to protect her from the heat in one hand and a megaphone in the other. She announces that she has cats to rent and helps lonely people fill the emptiness in their hearts. But Sayoko is also lonely; since her mother died, she has lived with the city’s cats. Until one day, a man from the past comes back. Sayoko’s life is about to change completely.


Thursday 9 August

Diamond Flash, Carlos Vermut, 2011 / 130 min / video / Spain / In Spanish

Session programmed by Jordi Costa

Violeta will do anything to find her missing daughter. Elena is keeping a strange secret. Lola has something she wants to settle. Juana needs someone to love her, unconditionally and unquestioningly. And Enriqueta just wants someone to make her laugh. These five women have something in common: they are all related to Diamond Flash, a mysterious character who will change their lives. This enigmatic storyline barely sums up this unclassifiable film, probably one of the most eccentric works of Spanish cinema in recent years.


Tuesday 14 August

The Day He Arrives, Hong Sang-Soo, 2011 / 79 min / 35 mm / South Korea / In Korean, with English and Catalan subtitles

Session programmed by Eulàlia Iglesias

Sungjoon, film director, goes to Seoul to visit an old friend who lives in the Buckhon district. When his friend fails to answer his calls, Sungjoon starts to roam the city. In the course of his wanderings, he bumps into his ex-girlfriend and talks to an actor who gave up acting to devote himself to his business in Vietnam, chats with aspiring film students, the owner of a bar who looks rather like his ex and a charming film professor. All this, in the context of the Novel bar, where, of course, the rice wine flows freely.


Wednesday 15 August

Bullhead, Michaël R. Roskam, 2011 / 124 min / 35 mm / Belgium / In French and Flemish, with English and Catalan subtitles
Not recommended for under-18s

Session programmed by Carlos Losilla

Jacky Vanmarsenille is a young farmer who strikes up a relation with an unscrupulous vet who suggests an unorthodox deal with a beef trader in the country’s Flemish region. The murder of a federal police officer and the confrontation with a dark secret from his childhood trigger a chain of far-reaching events.


Thursday 16 August

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, Marie Losier, 2011 / 72 min / video / Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, France and Holland / In English, with Spanish subtitles

Session programmed by Gonzalo de Pedro

An intimate portrait of the life and work of one of the foremost artists of the audiovisual avant-garde, Genesis P-Orridge, and his wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye. Both underwent a physical transformation to become identical, creating a new sexual gender they defined as “pandrogyne”.


Tuesday 21 August

Verano, José Luis Torres Leiva, 2011 / 93 min / video / Chile / In Spanish

Session programmed by Fran Gayo

On a hot summer day, a series of minor events mark the lives of a group of visitors and workers at an old spa in the south of Chile. Julieta, Francisco, Isa, Rodrigo, Ignacio, Mariana, Muriel, Gabriela, Eliseo, Norma, Alejandra and Claudio spend the long summer hours in nature, learning to drive, cleaning the house, kissing for the first time, or just talking and walking as the day slowly dissolves into fragments of happiness and discovery.


Wednesday 22 August

Cut, Amir Naderi, 2011 / 120 min / video / Japan / In Japanese, with English and Catalan subtitles

Session programmed by Jaime Pena

Shuji is a young filmmaker who is uncompromising with Japanese society. One day, he realizes that his brother, who helped to finance his films, has been executed by his own yakuza for not paying his debts. Described as a poem of love to Japanese films of the past and as a protest against present-day cinema, Cut is an exploration of one man’s obsessive relationship with the cinema.


Thursday 23 August

Avé, Konstantin Bojanov, 2011 / 86 min / 35 mm / Bulgaria / In Bulgarian, English and German, with English and Catalan subtitles

Session programmed by Alejandro Díaz Castaño

While hitchhiking from Sofia to Ruse to attend the funeral of an old school friend, Kamen meets Avé, a 17-year-old runaway looking for her brother. On the journey, Avé invents a new identity for both every time someone picks them up, but her compulsive lies become increasingly problematic. Though initially reluctant to be drawn into Avé’s game, Kamen starts to fall in love with his travel companion.


Friday 24 August

Session 10:

Your session—the film selected by public vote
El ángel exterminador (The exterminating angel)Luis Buñuel, 1962/ 93min/35mm/Mèxic/VO Spanish