Each year the festival shows a key film from the vaults of Spanish cinema. In honour of the 2002 Goya Lifetime Achievement recipient, Juan AntonioBardem, we are proud to offer a rare screeningof his solo directorial début, an oppositional film made at the height of the Francoist regime.Muerte de un ciclista The patriarch of the talented Bardem clan (including actor Javier, actress Pilar, and director Miguel), Bardem was a key figure amongst the small group of filmmakers who dared to oppose the production, distribution, and censorship apparatus of the fascist regime. Bardem wrote and directed this withering comment upon Francoist hypocrisy and oppression.A couple of bourgeois adulterers, hurrying back from a tryst, are inconvenienced’ when they knock down a cyclist, so they leave him to die. But Juan can’t live with this deed, and so this insignificant’ death sets off rippling ramifications within the parlours of the privileged by awakening the conscience of one man. Inspired by film movements from Russia, Germany, and Italy, Bardem’s film is visually eclectic but politically inspired in its aesthetic, and won him the International Critic’s Prize at the Cannes Film Festival (plus a stint in jail).***Introduction in Spanish to archive screening***Fernando López, Head of Studies at the Instituto Cervantes will introduce MUERTE DE UN CICLISTA in Spanish, looking at the content and style of the film. (Intermediate level in Spanish is required).