DIRECTED by Natalia Ortiz, the 14th Spanish Film Festival is a joint tribute to the Spanish zest for life and the third most widely-spoken language on earth.
Though its main focus is on contemporary Spanish cinema, it also has films in Spanish from Latin America. The festival festival screens at Greater Union, Manuka from May 26-29.
With 36 features including prizewinners at Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and San Sebastian, the highlight will be the Australian premiere of 2010 Venice Film Festival dazzler, the “Tarantinoesque” film “The Last Circus”, in which two clowns compete for the love of a beautiful woman.
That’s just one movie about the world of performance.  “Lope” is a lavish historical adventure about the “Shakespeare” of Spain, Lope De Vega, and “Paper Birds” tells of a vaudeville troupe travelling in the aftermath of the Civil War. In the comedy “One World Square,” a local rock band decides to take justice into their own hands after a boy is murdered.
The weird docco “Fake Orgasm” follows Lazlo Pearlman as he asks why most women say they’re sexually dissatisfied, while “18 Meals” stars 18 fabulous meals served up in the pilgrimage capital Santiago de Compostela.
That 21st century favourite horror is not forgotten. “Kidnapped” is a home-invasion horror and the closing-night movie, “Julia’s Eyes,” stars the queen of Spanish horror, Belen Rueda.
Here’s my favourite, though it’s really for kids – “The Adventures of Don Quixote,” is an animation in which Cervantes’ story is reinterpreted by his pet mouse.
The 14th Spanish Film Festival, Greater Union, Manuka, May 26-29. For program and ticketing information visit www.spanishfilmfestival.com