(Almost) free live music and stuff, May 2026

Some stuff that I saw in Vitoria, Santander, Torrelavega and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

• 9 May: «Cenizas de Oro» @ Centro Cívico Langraiz-Oka, Tres de Marzo Parkea, 1, Nanclares de la Oca / Langraiz Oka
  A comedy by the amateur theatre group No Me Claves Tus Puñales. Not exactly free as €2 donation (for an NGO to be determined) was requested, but quite worth it.

  

• 15 May: Cantabria en Corto 2025 @ Filmoteca de Cantabria Mario Camus, Calle Bonifaz, 6, Santander
  The programme included Relato del niño que estuvo allí by Sergio Ruiz García; Solo es cuestión de tiempo by Carlos Martínez Pérez; “Solo los muertos se quedan by Alejandro Renedo; Una playa by Juan Carlos Cabañas Soto and Luis Paredes; Instrucciones para quedarse by Caque Trueba; and Wounded Light by Abril Catalina Beascoechea.

  

• 16 May: V Raw Market @ Plaza Mayor, Torrelavega
  Organised by Escuela de Arte Roberto Orallo (Puente San Miguel, Cantabria), this annual event allows the students of the school to present and market the work created during their training. The highlight was a concert of Cantabrian rock band The Haze.

  

• 24 May: Ajódar Poetry Jazz @ Sala Faro, Calle Concejal Manuel Rodríguez Costas, 1, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  The only event of the Deriva Jazz Timur and I attended. We were not impressed. Ajódar Duo, whose members did not bother to introduce themselves, played some jazz (badly) and recited some poetry (worse). On the brighter note, we have discovered a new venue in just a five-minute walk from us.
• 26 May: «Gran poder a de mandar o mar et todo los ventos» @ Casa de Colón, Calle Colón, 1
  Dedicated to the quincentenary of the death of Elcano, this concert featured “music around the Iberian circumnavigation routes”. Pedro Bonet employed 14 different recorders — copies of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque models — to play a bedazzling array of works composed and/or collected by Alfonso X el Sabio, Diego Ortiz, Pieter de Vois, Thomas Edward Bowdich, Hans Sloane, Joseph-Marie Amiot, William Hamilton Bird and many others. Part of the cycle Música Antigua en el Patio.

  

• 28 May: «Tiempo de Zafra» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  La Banda Sinfónica de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria featuring Domingo Luis Rodríguez Oramas “El Colorao” on timple and voices of Tania Gil and Pedro Manuel Afonso. The concert included a performance of Zafra, a work for timple and symphony orchestra composed by Laura Vega.

  

And exhibitions:

• 7—31 May: «Color, memoria y gesto» @ Sala de Exposiciones Mauro Muriedas, Calle Pedro Alonso Revuelta, 5, Torrelavega
  Works by Débora Regalado and Alejandro Mesurado.

  

• 8 May — 5 July: «Wetlands» @ El Palacete del Embarcadero, Muelle de Calderón, Santander
  Works by Paula Santomé.

  

Goodbye, May.

Rojo y negro

a film by Carlos Arévalo

In Rojo y negro (1942), one of the protagonists, Luisa (Conchita Montenegro), is a goodie Falangist. The problem is — or, I suppose, was, from the regime’s point of view at least — that her boyfriend Miguel (Ismael Merlo), a left-wing activist, is not exactly a baddie. The director’s affiliation with the Falange did not save the film. The Generalissimo was not amused and the movie was promptly withdrawn from the theatres. It was thought to be lost until, 50 years later, a dusty copy was discovered in some basement in Madrid.

This film was screened as part of the new cycle «Los otros de Falange» organised by Asociación de Cine Vértigo.

La flor de mi secreto

a film by Pedro Almodóvar

The Flower of My Secret was the first film of Almodóvar I’ve ever seen, some 30 years ago, in the Hyde Park Picture House of Leeds^*. Yesterday, we re-watched it thanks to Spanish Television^†.

Turned out that I remembered this movie pretty well. The difference is, now I don’t need English subtitles to understand the dialogue. The great late Marisa Paredes is as elegant as she is in the role of Leo. The comic relief is provided by Chus Lampreave and Rossy de Palma as Leo’s mother and sister, respectively.

*	I’ve found the issue of Leeds Student with screening times for this film. To my surprise, the first page of the newspaper sports a photo of “the rare cloud phenomenon that ... is unlikely to be repeated during our lifetime” which I had a pleasure to observe with my own eyes on 16 February 1996.
†	It was shown as part of the cycle Historia de nuestro cine, to mark the anniversary of the death of Marisa Paredes.

Mariposas Negras

a film by David Baute
screenplay by Yaiza Berrocal and David Baute

This animation tells the stories of Valeria, Tanit and Shaila, three migrant women from different parts of the world. A Spanish-Panamanian co-production, directed by the Canarian David Baute and featuring the original song by Rubén Blades.

Ullate. La danza de la vida

a film by Elena Cid Sebastián

Mónica Cruz says that when she was a child, Víctor Ullate was considered to be a dancer of the caliber of Baryshnikov and Nureyev. Maybe. I first heard his name yesterday — fittingly, on International Dance Day, thanks to Filmoteca Canaria.

It was no one else but Antonio Gades who, after seeing Víctor dancing, insisted that the boy had to study ballet. So Ullate was accepted to the school of María de Ávila in Zaragoza — the first male student there. In 1964, he became a principal dancer of the Ballet du XX^e siècle of Maurice Béjart. How cool is that?

Like many biographical documentaries, this one suffers from too many talking heads and too many too short snippets of actual Ullate performances. Still, I’m glad I watched it. Now to do my own research.

This film was screened as a part of the cycle Tiempo de memoria, memoria en el tiempo.

Aitana & Ozogoche

Both documentaries were screened last Thursday in Casa de Colón.

Aitana (2023)

a film by Marina Alberti

Marina Alberti’s directorial debut is a letter of love to her mother, Aitana Alberti León, and grandmother, María Teresa León. Now Aitana starts to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, which also affected María Teresa.

Now this was not in the film: according to Spanish Wikipedia, María Teresa León spent her last years of life in a sanatorium in Majadahonda, near Madrid. Her loving husband, Rafael Alberti, never accepted María Teresa’s illness and... escaped to Rome. What a gentlemen! She died alone and forgotten.

Ozogoche (2023)

a film by Joe Houlberg Silva

In a recent interview, the director Joe Houlberg says that it took six years to film Ozogoche. In the beginning it was supposed to be a documentary about strange behaviour of migratory birds, upland sandpipers (Bartramia longicauda), known in Ecuador as cuvivíes. There is no shortage of hypotheses why some of these birds travel some 10,000 kilometers from North America to Ozogoche lagoons only to plummet into the icy waters and die. What happened though, after these years of living with local community, the film creators realised that poor cuvivíes became, in words of Houlberg, “just an allegory of the true story <...>, the story of an indigenous family in the Ecuadorian páramo who are waiting for their relatives, waiting for something to change”. If you liked the magical realism of El Eco, you’ll fall in love with Ozogoche.

La maldición, el milagro y el burro

a film by Ayoze O’Shanahan and Mafe Céspedes

The Colombian town of Gramalote was destroyed by a landslide in 2010. As Ayoze O’Shanahan explained before the screening, the filming of the documentary began exactly when the disaster struck. By the time of its release in 2012, there was little progress with resettlement or rebuilding: most Gramalote (ex-)residents still lived in tents. So the film ends on a bittersweet note that’s more bitter than sweet. I was happy to discover today that by October 2024 the construction of Nuevo Gramalote had been essentially completed.

The titular curse refers to the fate of the town (but of course, its destruction was prophesised before). The miracle was that there were no human casualties — naturally, thanks to the devoutness of Gramalote townfolk. Another explanation is that the slide was relatively slow-moving so the population had plenty of time to move out to safety. Unfortunately, one donkey died.

This film opens the third edition of the cycle Tiempo de memoria, memoria en el tiempo organised by Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural (ICDC).

Hágase tu voluntad

a film by Adrián Silvestre

Ricardo wants to die. He lost his beloved wife, Carmen, he suffered two strokes and is depressed. Before dying, however, he wants to speak to his two sons — one of them is the film’s director — whom he didn’t see for more than 20 years. The reason for their separation is never adequately explained. Maybe it shouldn’t be.

I do sympathise with the protagonist although at no point did he strike me as a particularly nice person. He clearly needs to be the centre of attention, now that the family unites around him. While he wallows in nostalgia and self-pity, Adrián’s mother, who’s been caring for her ex-husband for years, feels abandoned. (We’ll probably never know how did Ricardo treat Carmen.) When Adrián accompanies him to start a request process for euthanasia (this is the only scene in the film spoken in Valencian), Ricardo seems to be taken aback by apparent simplicity of the whole thing. Is it that easy?

In the beginning I thought, here comes another “let’s make a documentary about my parent” project in the vein of Une vie comme une autre or Muchos hijos, un mono y un castillo. (Indeed, in an interview, Adrián Silvestre quotes the latter film as an inspiration). It turned out to be a completely different affair. No more spoilers, just let me say that Hágase tu voluntad is worth watching for the final scene alone.

39 very short films

Thirty-nine? You must be kidding me. Not ten, not fifteen, but 39 short films selected from, wait for it, 58 submitted to the competition. The competition in question is called Visionaria, but I’m afraid this year’s jury had a very vague idea what “selection” is. Judging from what I’ve seen yesterday, the remaining 19 films (33%) must have been pretty unimpressive. The screening was held in Teatro Guiniguada which was packed — with Rabbit’s friends and relations, I suppose. Short films are not that popular otherwise.

The complete programme is available here — I can’t be bothered to list all films in this post. I liked Femme by Javier González and Still Live by María Sanz Esteve. My favourite, however, and the one I voted for, was Agatha Christie estuvo aquí by Cayetana H. Cuyás which, to my delight, has won the first prize.

All the films are available at YouTube.

Domingo Domingo

a film by Laura García Andreu

Hallo, mein Name ist Domingo Domingo. Willst du meine Mandarinen probieren?

A humorous and touching documentary about an inventive farmer from Valencian community. While the old timers spend their days in the bar (nothing wrong with it) complaining how orange growing is going to the dogs, Domingo Domingo has a cunning plan... (In Valencian, with Spanish subtitles.)

Rock and Roll y malas compañías

a film by Lauren Jordan

Imagine the clip below going on for 100 minutes. That’s what this film is like.

It seems to be made for (and by) folks with attention span of about 15 seconds. If you want to learn about history of rockabilly in Spain — or to hear at least one complete song other than that by the very Lauren Jordan — look elsewhere.

Fifteen short films

I missed them last January, but this Wednesday, just like year before, and all these years before that, I went to Teatro Guiniguada to see the 15 winning shorts of San Rafael en Corto. I have to say that the quality of the films went up — I liked all of them. My favourites were Araceli by Andrea Gutiérrez, El Alquimista by Oscar Santamaría, Patata by Emilio González and SAI^* by Aldo and Celia González.

Proyección del palmarés de la XIX edición de SREC Teatro Guiniguada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Tuesday, 24 January 2024, 19:30

La Espera by Manel Salgueiro Araceli by Andrea Gutiérrez García Allegro (ma non troppo) by Zhana Yordanova Heroínas by Iris Carballo Déniz Desmadres by María Sanz Esteve El Alquimista by Oscar Santamaría El mejor fruto del huerto by CEIP La Zafra Volver contigo by Iván Umpiérrez Cañada Mar & Flor Amazonas by Elena Gracia, Marta Fuenar & Natalia Martínez La era de Verdugo by Daniel Santana Sosa Patata by Emilio González VIh-VIR by Estella Lola Cedrún Lastra & Ana Rosa González Eco Papa Whisky by Himar Soto Martín SAI by Aldo González & Celia González Fría by David Sanz

*	SAI stands for Sistema de Alimentación Ininterrumpida (uninterruptible power supply).

Un amor

a film by Isabel Coixet

Me sorprende cómo la gente juzga a este personaje desde una especie de atalaya de superioridad moral, desde una estupidez que me alucina.

From the interview with Isabel Coixet

If you are running away from somebody or something, a godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere should be at the bottom of your destination list. However, this is exactly where Nat (Laia Costa) finds herself, and, predictably enough, things don’t go well. The men in her way — the landlord (Luis Bermejo), Píter (Hugo Silva), and Andreas “the German” (Hovik Keuchkerian) — are all quite repulsive, albeit in their own ways. By embarking on an affair with Andreas, Nat is simply bound to be judged, by the villagers and the viewers alike. Isabel Coixet says in an interview that she is surprised by the latter’s reaction; on the contrary, I don’t find anything remotely surprising in that. Esto es lo que hay.

But wait. In Un amor, Coixet masterfully juggles the disturbing and the comic; the Riojan locations are breathtaking; and — a bit of a spoiler here — it all ends much better than expected. So long, assholes! The finale, with Nat reuniting with her true love, Sieso the dog, and dancing to Es wird wieder gut by Palast Orchester, is gloriously uplifting. It will make you (want to) dance too.

La Singla

a film by Paloma Zapata

The fictional journalist Elena (Helena Kaittani) is looking for a trace of Antoñita Singla, a deaf bailaora famous in 1960s. According to Kaittani, her personage is based on the film’s director, Paloma Zapata. The investigation of Elena is much more believable than that of Jeff Harris in They Shot the Piano Player. But did La Singla really disappear only to be found by the film creators through, wait a minute, the car dealer Singlauto? I don’t think so. For example, a 2017 article mentions matter-of-factly that La Singla has retired from dancing but is very much alive.

Never mind that. The movie is gripping. At least it was for me. And, thanks to it, I discovered an amazing flamenco dancer.

Tren de sombras

a film by José Luis Guerín

A silent film that is never silent. What starts like an innocent amateur family footage from 1930 develops into something way more mysterious, even sinister. (Closer to the end, we’ll see a bit of a remake in colour.) There are connotations of Antonioni’s Blow-Up; long shots à la Tarkovsky bring almost unbearable tension. And the enigma remains unsolved. A 1997 masterpiece that I’ve never heard about.

Dispararon al pianista

a film by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal

From the creators of Chico & Rita, this animated almost-documentary follows the trail of hitherto unknown to me Brazilian jazz pianist Tenório Jr. who mysteriously disappeared in 1976.

I found They Shot the Piano Player uneven, often repetitive and at times frustrating. In addition, the version I saw in Los Ángeles was dubbed. Although the film is Spanish, its original soundtrack is mostly not. So when they say “starring Jeff Goldblum” and “interviews with Gilberto Gil, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso” etc. etc. and after that you don’t hear their voices, you’re bound to be disappointed.

On a more positive note, I’ve discovered a new name. And the music is great throughout.

Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa

a film by Fermín Muguruza

If you like Basque punk and gratuitous cartoony violence, there is a slight chance that you might enjoy this crudely-made animation. Watch a trailer (something I never do before going to a cinema) and decide if you want to proceed. Otherwise, best to avoid.

This was the last screening of CINEZiN2. So. Last year I saw three (out of four) films of CINEZiN, one was great. This year, I saw all three of them and one was really good. Oh well, at least it was free. I hope next year the festival comes back with a better selection of stuff.

Eleven short films

This is the first time I went to Casa de Colón to see films of any kind. Tonight’s screening was organised by the museum and Asociación de Cine Vértigo. The first five shorts were the winners of the last year’s film contest Visionaria, conceptos de isla. Cristina Yurena Zerr Sarmiento, the director of Kintsugi (the second prize of the jury), was there to say a few introductory words, along the lines “I don’t want to talk longer than a film and my film is really short”. I loved that. To my own surprise, however, my favourite film of the programme was the longest one, the 24-minute Chão de fábrica (Lunch Break) starring Helena Albergaria, Joana Castro, Carol Duarte and Alice Marcone.

Colón Cinema: Selección de cortos iberoamericanos

Casa de Colón, Calle Colón, 1, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Thursday, 26 January 2023, 19:00

1. Superhost (Spain, 2022) by Marine Discazeaux and Víctor Ordóñez
2. Kintsugi (Spain, 2022) by Cristina Yurena Zerr Sarmiento
3. Una vuelta completa / All the Way Around (Spain, 2022) by Zhana Yhordanova
4. Eneagrito (Spain, 2022) by Oscar Santamaría
5. Todo el mundo habla de Javier (Spain, 2022) by Fátima Luzardo
6. Muralla china (Argentina, 2020) by Santiago Barzi
7. Nosotros las bestias (Bolivia, 2021) by Marcelo Landaeta
8. Los puros (Cuba, 2020) by Carla Valdés
9. Terceiro Turno (Portugal, 2021) by Mário Macedo
10. Chão de fábrica (Brazil, 2021) by Nina Kopko
11. Una niña y su sombra (Brazil/Germany/Argentina, 2020) by Vanessa Heeger

Mantícora

a film by Carlos Vermut

Almost two hours of uncomfortable viewing featuring a creepy video game developer (Nacho Sánchez), cute girlfriend (Zoe Stein) and thoroughly lame ending. I appreciate the director’s bravery (attempting to tackle a difficult theme, blah blah blah), now let me out of here. The only positive experience of all this was my first visit to Los Ángeles — I mean the movie theatre (Calle Ruamayor, 6). Luckily, it was not the last film I saw in Santander this year.

O que arde

a film by Oliver Laxe

A powerful and touching drama starring Benedicta Sánchez in her cinematic debut at a tender young age of 84.