Category Archives: Spanish Films

This film (available through YouTube) is based on the true story of Camila O’Gorman, the daughter of an upper-class family in Buenos Aires who was executed at the age of 23 for an affair with a Roman Catholic priest, Father Ladislao Gutiérrez. They were both executed under the orders of the tyranical governor Juan Manuel de Rosas, and with the encouragement of her own father. The film is a bit dated and the auto-generated subtitles are appalling, but the Spanish wasn’t too fast and I could follow it. In fact, I even had a little tear in my eye when it finished!

I’m not really sure if I know what this short film was about, but it wasn’t a problem of language! It was a homage to Alicia D’Amico, the Argentinian photographer who died in 2001. Her father owned a commercial photography store in Buenos Aires, but when she became a photographer in her own right, she concentrated more on ethnographic and political photography. She was a prominent feminist and lesbian activist. You can read more about her here (in English!)

The film was very arty, with lots of long lingering shots, and the use of D’Amico’s own films and photographs from Buenos Aires, Paris and Switzerland, interviews and fragments of written letters. It was very beautifully filmed and after reading (in English) more about her, I guess that I understood more than I thought I had. The film was part of the Instituto Cervantes series of LGBTI short films.

Another short film offering from Instituto Cervantes in their LGBTQI theme for July, this time from Colombia.

Alma has transitioned and has started at a new school. A boy is attracted to her, but unsure of herself and still only part-way through her transition, she rebuffs him. She really doesn’t seem very happy. Things seem a bit more optimistic at the end. It must be so hard to be so young, so nervous about a new body and having to negotiate a new life.

Continuing on with the series of LGBTQI films from Instituto Cervantes in July, Snap is an 18-minute Chilean film.

Actually, this trailer is almost as long as the movie was! The directors saved postings from Snap Chat, which usually disappear after a day or so, and chose three to form the narrative of this small documentary. (I assume with the permission of the poster? Interesting question- if you put something on Snap Chat does that mean you’re alright with a documentary being made of it?) The first is of a teenager who is haranguing his mother into buying him an i-phone; the second is of a drag queen; and the third is of a young man undergoing genital surgery to become a woman. I felt rather voyeuristic watching this, and the self-absorption, particularly of the drag queen, I found quite off-putting. I finished it, feeling very old.

A young transgender girl, Mari is experimenting with her identity as Victor. She is in a gay relationship with another young girl, who doesn’t know about her illicit excursions as Victor. It’s really well acted, with Alba Martinez as Mari/Victor. For a film only 19 minutes long, it’s sad and beautiful.

I watched it through Instituto Cervantes, who have a number of short LGBTI films available during July. I choose to watch them with Spanish subtitles, but English subtitles are available too. Each film is only available for 48 hours.

I’ve joined up for the short films presented by Instituto Cervantes during July for their LGBTQI short film festival.

‘Después también’ is short indeed at only 25 minutes. A young boy, Edu, learns that he has been exposed to HIV by a gay ex-lover and he now has to tell his new girlfriend. “I have something to tell you” he says. And then it ends. What did she say? Did they stay together? I guess I’ll never know. Unfortunately the trailer doesn’t have subtitles.

Another Instituto Cervantes documentary.

Well, that’s seventy minutes of my life that I’m not going to get back again. I have no idea what this film was about, and I doubt if I would have understood it any better had I used the English subtitles instead of the Spanish ones. Two men, one living in a campervan, the other in a shack, are living beside a lake in the mountains. The scenery is magnificent, but they seem to be the only two men alive on earth. Each living in their own place, they get up each morning, they fish – sometimes alone, sometimes together – they fix nets, they burn their rubbish, they chop wood. At night they talk. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they lovers? Where did one of them go in the end? I kept expecting a story, but there isn’t one. You may as well just watch the trailer.

Obviously someone got more from it than I did. Here’s a review in English

This is the film offering for this weekend from Instituto Cervantes. They are free, but you do need to book to get the link. Like the film last week, this is a semi-documentary (or as the co-producers describe it ‘narrative non-fiction documentary’, this time about two boys, one aged 13 and the other 9, who have grown up together in a country town. Now the older boy is shifting to La Habana. Much of the film involves the two boys romping, wrestling and teasing each other. My knowledge of Spanish slang is insufficient to understand much of what they were saying, but it all seemed to be good-natured offensiveness. It is summer holidays, and the kids just roam around disused buildings and empty swimming pools, with nary an adult in sight. Once the older boy Antuán shifts to Havana, the younger boy Leonal visits him but things have changed.

I gather that this was filmed documentary-style, and largely unscripted. I’d forgotten the slow easiness of Cuba, even in Havana. It’s all very subtle and atmospheric, but not much happens.

Instituto Cervantes is releasing a series of short films during May, although I missed the first one. They are only available for 48 hours, and it’s too late for you to order a (free) ticket- but there are more films scheduled for the rest of the month. I’m not quite sure how to translate “Para la guerra” because ‘para’ can mean so many things: To War? For War? In order for War?

Anyway, it’s about an old man, who fought in wars in both Angola and Nicaragua during the 1970s and 1980s, now living in Cuba just after the death of Fidel Castro. He is looking for the soldiers who fought alongside him, all of whom are just as old as him now. It’s pretty slow moving, with long minutes of night vision of walking through the grass and along roads. I was more interested in the switch between historical film, taken in a stadium where soldiers were demonstrating their hand-to-hand combat and ability to smash bricks with their heads, and the present-day reenactment where this old man smears his face with grease and grass, and dances his choreography of combat. He seems to have a lonely life, without family, and I was pleased that he finally reconnected with an old comrade.