Instituto Cervantes hosted a 4-day festival on new Ibero-American cinema at the IHC
New Delhi: Instituto Cervantes resumed its collaboration with the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival, with the help of the Huelva City Council, with a programme that presented the diversity and forcefulness of cinema made on the Ibero-American continent. The production in Spanish in this extensive region has a resounding reach in international festivals and fills experimental cinemas around the world. The four films screened at the Indian Habitat Centre from Dec 6 – 9, 2022 as part of the festival – Miriam Lies, The Lunchroom, Song Without a Name, and Pizarro – explored how difficult it is to live and fulfill the dreams and ideals that people forge for themselves, even if these are only for being able to tackle the everyday life.
The tension and pain suffered by the protagonists of Miriam Lies or Song Without a Name reveal how women are the first victims of social imbalances and new ways of relating, in the first case, but also of the violence and horror of the stolen children, in the second. The work environment and its conflicts in the management of human resources is one of the themes of The Lunchroom, a film that shows how labor conflicts have turned towards more invisible spaces, but no less unfair. Finally, in Pizarro, an approximation to Colombian historical memory is elaborated from the shared role of the protagonist and her father, a commander assassinated after the signing of the peace accords.
Speaking about the festival, Martí Bassets Claret, Cultural Manager, Instituto Cervantes said, “From Instituto Cervantes, we are pleased to have brought to the Delhi audiences ‘uncomfortable realities’ with which we hope that the cinephiles and general audience from Delhi would have had the prospect to discover and enjoy new and interesting narratives from the Ibero-American cinematographies, as well as touching and human stories.”
Sharing his thoughts, the festival presenter and noted Indian film critic Murtaza Ali Khan said, “The Ibero-American cinema is constantly pushing the envelope by making highly thought-provoking, humanistic films about telling subjects often tackled using refreshing narrative styles. Despite the proximity to the US, the filmmakers from the region haven’t allowed a powerful industry like Hollywood to negatively influence them, time and again proving their cinema’s merit which is strongly reflective of the independent spirit and thought that drives their refreshing storytelling styles. The festival that I presented at the India Habitat Centre brought some of the most absorbing stories from the Ibero-American region.”