december 4 - 31, 1998

photo: OPEN YOUR EYES

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Presented in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SGAE) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture (ICAA).
Since 1992, December has been earmarked for our yearly survey of Spanish cinema, one of the most consistently provocative of the European filmmaking traditions. Spanish Cinema Now continues to chart the remarkable and rising surge of innovative filmmaking from the Iberian peninsula.

Spanish Cinema Now also includes an exciting retrospective of selected works by Spanish director Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. A contemporary of Spanish filmmakers such as Victor Erice, Mario Camus, José Luis Borau, et al., Gutiérrez Aragón is part of a generation who began their moviemaking careers as "children of Franco," censored and constricted by the repressive Spanish dictatorship. After Francisco Franco's death in 1975 and the advent of democratic freedoms, these artists--in order to adapt to sociopolitical change and grow as filmmakers--had to discover new content and styles of expression. Gutiérrez Aragón's visually powerful designs of interwoven fairy tale, myth, dream, and actuality gave way to less symbolic, more accessible filmmaking that featured well-known movie stars--as this Spanish master reached out to broader audiences without surrendering his bedrock themes and personal vision. Rarely have American moviegoers had the opportunity to enjoy Gutiérrez Aragón's distinctive cinema--join us at the Walter Reade for a survey that ranges from his first feature to Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón's most recent film.

manuel gutiérrez aragón retrospective

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