Spanish Movie week starts Cultural Spanish Autumn in Tirana

On October 8, a day considered worldwide as the Hispanic Day the Spanish Ambassador in Tirana Manuel Montobbio, launched a series of activities that will comprise the Cultural Spanish Autumn in Tirana, starting with the fourth Spanish movie week this year and including activities in the realms of history, literature, architecture and debates around political and economic issues as well as issues of integration.
Three main topics have oriented the choice of these activities:
– the metamorphosis of contemporary Spain
– contributing to Albanian reflections on important issues determining universal future trends.
– the meeting with collective imagination.
The focus of the Spanish movie week will be the social transformations of Spain during the last decades, the tile of the week being “Spain, 1940-2007, the History of a metamorphosis”. All the movies will be free for the Albanian audience and subtitled in Albanian and English for the admirers of Spanish moviemakers of the international community that lives and works in Tirana. All the movies will be shown at the National Culture Center ‘Arbnori.”
The first movie that launched the series after the introduction by Ambassador Montobbio and a pleasurable wine glass for participants was La Colmena (The Beehive) directed by Mario Camus and based on the novel by Camilo Jos顃ela, Nobel winning author. It depicts the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and its impact on several characters. Cela himself participates in the movie with small role as Mat. The film is set in Madrid during the postwar period, beginning in 1942. The population suffers the consequences of the civil war. A group of members of a social gathering meet every day in the caf題a Delicia. The movie was awarded the Golden bear prize in the Berlin Film festival.
The hard times of Franco’s epoch, the years 50-60, during which a large number of villagers immigrate towards European cities in search of better conditions are the background of the protagonists of the second movie in the series. This is One franc, 14 pesetas’ directed by Carlos Iglesias, and tells the story of two friends, Martini and Marko who decide to leave for Switzerland and look for a job there. Leaving their families behind they discover a very different Europe where mentality is more different than anything else. They have to adapt and in the meantime work in the factory of a small industrial village. Their bachelor life ends with the arrival of their partners, Pilar the wife of Martin together with their son Pablo and Maria Karmen, Marko’s fiancꥮ Life goes on as before and even little Pablo starts to integrate in the new life. With the death of Martin’s father both couples think that the aim they immigrated for is now complete and perhaps it is time to go back. The hardship starts when they realize that going back is much more difficult than leaving.
The following movie is Life and color of E Santiago Tabernero, placed in the fall of the year 1975. Fede, a fifteen-years-old boy, is getting conscious of his environment little by little: his sister Bego