Skip to main content

Festival coverage

Viva

2009

Empty Nest will open the festival
Empty Nest will open the festival

Now in its 15th year, the Viva Spanish and Latin American Film Festival celebrates the best of the current crop of Spanish language films. This year's selection ranges from Andalucian sci-fi to Cuban Comedy and Catalan documentary.

The festival kicks off at Manchester's Cornerhouse on March 6, with Argentinian film Empty Nest (El Nido Vacio), and for those who want to get a flavour of what to expect there will be a one-hour overview introductory presentation - Spanish Cinema Now - at 6pm on March 2.

Selected highlights from the festival will tour venues across the UK and Ireland including Dartington, Nottingham, Cardiff, Chichester, Clwyd, Edinburgh, Inverness, Northampton, Dublin, Sheffield, Newcastle, Bristol and Derby, for more details visit www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/viva2009.

Other years (10)

Latest reviews

  • The Horn Of Plenty
    Review preview for The Horn Of Plenty

    The main attraction is the plot's undercurrent, which offers an absurdist, but poignant commentary on the current sociopolitical state of Cuba.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    The possibility of a share of an inherited fortune causes ructions in a small Cuban town.
  • LT22: Radio La Colifata
    Review preview for LT22: Radio La Colifata

    Through the course of the film, we will come to know many of the patients there for who they really are, humans – no different from anyone else except for their medical problems, which so many of us are blessed to avoid.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Documentary about a radio show produced by patients at a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital.
  • Heart Of Time
    Review preview for Heart Of Time

    Docudrama at a basic level.

    Angus Wolfe Murray · 3 out of 5
    Is love stronger than duty in the heartland of Mexico's rebel community?
  • Cowards
    Review preview for Cowards

    Love may heal the wounds of adolescence, but emotional isolation is the prison from which these lost boys never escape.

    Angus Wolfe Murray · 4 out of 5
    Communication breakdown and teenage bullying in a privileged Spanish day school.
  • The Black Virgin
    Review preview for The Black Virgin

    For a film that has a strong theme of romance and seems intent on exploring grey areas between superstition and religion, reality and fantasy, there are an awful lot of things being presented in black and white.

    Amber Wilkinson · 2.5 out of 5
    A town's church virgin begins granting favours... but people should be careful what they wish for.
  • Before The Fall
    Review preview for Before The Fall

    There is plenty of imminent danger to provide a gripping narrative.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    A family face a serial killer... and the apocalypse.
  • Sleep Dealer
    Review preview for Sleep Dealer

    Made on a minuscule budget the feature took eight years to get from script to screen, one wonders how much more innovative it might have seemed back those eight years.

    Tony Sullivan · 3 out of 5
    Node Runner - if they catch you you're through!
  • The Appeared
    Review preview for The Appeared

    The film is made with commitment, even passion, and the terror tactics are effective until the plot loses itself in a miasmic mist of incomprehension.

    Angus Wolfe Murray · 3.5 out of 5
    Siblings are terrified by tortured ghosts and a brain dead father's legacy in Argentina.