¡Viva! 28th Spanish & Latin American Festival, Fri 18 Mar – Thu 7 Apr
Now in its 28th year, ¡Viva! returns for our annual celebration of Spanish and Latin American culture, bringing you a programme of the most exciting cinema from across the Spanish-speaking world. This year we screen 19 new feature films, including multiple UK cinema premieres, as well as two classic films from Spanish maestro Luis García Berlanga. Join us on the opening night for the joyous musical extravaganza Explota explota, and then continue your cinematic journey through heartfelt drama, intriguing documentary, thrilling tension and gentle comic relief on a voyage of discovery across Spain and Latin America.
¡Viva! veterans and aficionados of Spanish and Latin American cinema will spot the return of a few familiar names and faces in 2022, including Icíar Bollaín, Claudia Huaiquimilla, Juan Sebastián Mesa and Marité Ugas behind the camera. On the big screen you might recognise stars of Spanish cinema including Luis Tosar, Nora Navas, Ingrid García Jonsson, Blanca Portillo and Emma Suárez, or the prodigious Chilean talent Alfredo Castro.
We’re excited to bring back post-screening Q&As to ¡Viva! this year, with guests presenting four of our titles from Spain. On the Opening Night we welcome Nacho Álvarez to HOME, and he’s here for a Q&A after the second screening of his debut feature Explota explota on Sat 19 Mar. On Wed 23 Mar we host star of Spanish cinema Icíar Bollaín, with her latest film Maixabel. Manu Gómez presents the UK premiere of his debut feature, a highly personal coming-of-age story, Érase una vez en Euskadi on Tue 29 Mar. And finally, young lead actor Maria Morera is here for the screening of Libertad on Thu 31 Mar, the debut feature film that has won Clara Roquet the Best New Director Goya Award.
One of the key aims of the festival is to support new and emerging talent, and so we’re delighted to present 11 directors with feature film debuts: our opening night film by Nacho Álvarez (Explota explota), plus Spaniards Clara Roquet (Libertad), David Martín de los Santos (La Vida era eso), Javier Marco (Josefina) and Manu Gómez (Érase una vez en Euskadi); then we have two powerful dramas from Colombians Simón Mesa Soto (Amparo) and Joan Gómez Endara (El Árbol rojo), Ángeles Cruz (Nudo mixteco) from Mexico, Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (Clara Sola) from Costa Rica, and finally from Argentina, Micaela Gonzalo (La Chica nueva) and Félix Juan Pablo (Karnawal). What’s more, we’ve got five excellent short films preceding some of the features this year: Y así aparecieron los ríos, Los Conspiradores, Un Amor en rebeldía, La Primavera siempre vuelve and Salvaje.
This is a bumper year for beautifully told coming-of-age dramas, with six titles from our 2022 line-up coming under this category. Two from Argentina transport you from a chilly Patagonian factory town in La Chica nueva to the dusty northern heat of the gaucho’s malambo dance in Karnawal. Then head west to a Youth Detention Centre in the Chilean forest in Mis hermanos sueñan despiertos, before flying north to a violent barrio of Medellín in La Ciudad de las fieras. The situation was also tricky in the Basque Country of the 1980s for the four youngsters in Érase una vez en Euskadi, but the teenage concerns of contemporary Catalonia in Libertad might feel more familiar to many.
There will be plenty of short introductions to films, delivered by the festival team and other local film experts, as well as the fun and friendly Language Lab for adult students of Spanish on Sat 26 Mar, and the free Café Cervantes Spanish-language get-together on Sat 2 Apr. And new to the festival this year, make your way over to Homescreen, our new platform for online culture, for some bonus digital treats.
Find out even more about the films and events on this year in our special festival podcasts, in English or Spanish. With 50 screenings of 21 films from Spain, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Mexico, we can’t wait to welcome you to the 28th ¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Festival!
¡Disfrutad el festival!
All films will begin at the advertised time with no adverts or trailers.
All films are in Spanish with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.
All age certificates are local to Manchester City Council, unless otherwise stated.
The festival programme is curated by Rachel Hayward, Head of Film, Jessie Gibbs, ¡Viva! Festival Coordinator, and Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and HOME’s Senior Visiting Curator: Film.
¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Festival is produced by HOME with the support of the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester, the Embassy of Spain in London, and the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery.
FEATURE FILMS
Mis hermanos sueñan despiertos
SHORT FILMS: