All programs are free and open to audiences. RSVP is mandatory due to limited seating.
Please select an upcoming program below and click on the RSVP button to view information about the film and reserve your spot. You will receive an automatic email confirmation after registering on the individual film page.
Programs are hosted at the Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium.
(Programs dates and times are subject to change.)
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
El verdugo (Original Title)
Directed by Luis García Berlanga
Spain | 1963 | 92 minutes
In Spanish | English Subtitles | [ G ]
Synopsis: This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an executioner’s daughter and reluctantly takes over her father’s job so the family can keep their government-allotted apartment. As caustic today as it was in 1963, this early collaboration between Luis García Berlanga and his longtime screenwriter Rafael Azcona is an unerring depiction of what Berlanga called “the invisible traps that society sets up for us.” A furiously funny personal attack on capital punishment, The Executioner evaded the state censors who sought to suppress it, and today is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time.
Chico y Rita (Original Title)
Directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando
Spain | 2010 | 94 minutes
In Spanish, English, French | English Subtitles | [ 18+ ]
Synopsis: Oscar®-winning director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque, Calle 54) and Spain’s legendary illustrator Javier Mariscal celebrate their passion for the music and culture of Cuba with an epic story of love, passion, and heartbreak. Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and desire unite them as they chase their dreams and each other from Havana to New York to Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas. With an original soundtrack by legendary Cuban pianist and five-time Grammy®-winning composer Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita captures a defining moment in the evolution of history and jazz, and features the music of (and animated cameos by) Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, and others.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
El ángel exterminador (Original Title)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Mexico, Spain | 1962 | 93 minutes
In Spanish | English Subtitles | [15+]
Synopsis: Luis Buñuel's savage black comedy is one of the surrealist master’s greatest works, and perhaps his ultimate insult to conventional bourgeois morality. In Buñuel's brilliant film, a group of socialites are invited to a mansion for an elegant dinner party and find themselves mysteriously unable to leave their host’s drawing room at the conclusion of the evening. As the ordeal stretches into hours and then days, their civilized façades crumble under the pressures of confinement, hunger, and squalor, and they gradually revert to barbarism. Made just one year after the director’s international sensation Viridiana, this daring masterpiece, full of eerie comic absurdity, continues Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.
Directed by Carlos Saura
Spain | 2010 | 100 minutes
In Spanish | English Subtitles | [ G ]
Synopsis: Directed by legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, Flamenco, Flamenco is an evolutionary musical journey through the light, song and dance of a dynamic and alive art form. Beautifully photographed by famed Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, and showcasing a powerful new Flamenco through dazzling musical and dance performances by emerging talents, and the greatest living Flamenco masters, this unique musical odyssey reaches beyond the borders of Flamenco and Spanish culture toward a universal artistic expression.
