In preparation for the upcoming Spanish Film Festival, Palace Electric Cinema held a preview screening of one of the many award-winning and acclaimed movies that will be on show for the festival – the Opening Night’s film ‘Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.
Living is Easy… picked up 6 GOYAs (Spain’s premier annual film awards) including Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director, and was a fantastic appetiser for what is to come over the course of the festival. This is a heartfelt story of a small town teacher who teaches his students English via Beatles’ lyrics. Learning that his hero John Lennon is in the country filming a movie, he travels across Spain to meet his idol, picking up 2 young runaways along the way.
The movie was a great character piece, really exploring in depth the emotional arc of the three protagonists. Antonio, the teacher, is a loveable lead – caring, thoughtful with a kind heart. You really want him to win despite the unlikelihood of his situation. The two hitchhikers, Belen (a 20 year old pregnant woman) and Juanjo, 16 (trying to make a statement against his strict father), both learn valuable life lessons about themselves and each other in this part coming-of-age, part road-trip film.
It is always great to leave a foreign language film still getting the ‘feels’ that one normally gets from any other movie, despite having to read subtitles during the movie. I still found myself deeply entrenched in the story through the brilliant cinematography (also due to the beautiful setting and locations for the film) and acting.
If Living is Easy With Eyes Closed is an indicator of things to come, then The Spanish Film Festival will definitely be worth checking out. There is a lot more than Spain’s 30 best movies on show. There are events, parties and a special guest – acting sensation Alex Gonzalez (X-Men: First Class) doing a Q&A session on the 4 May after the screening of his film Scorpion in Love.
There will be a variety of all things Spain available too; with sangria, tapas and wine and lots of other goodies on hand for all film lovers out there and even the film curious.
The 17th Spanish Film Festival is touring nationally and begins on Thursday 1 May and runs until the 21 May. Pencil in some time to check out some amazing, award-winning foreign films – you’ll be both entertained and enlightened.
Click here to win tickets to the 2014 Spanish Film Festival.
The full programme is now released and tickets are on sale.
