You’ll find more than a few throughlines among the 10 films being screened at the 2024 edition of Spanish Cinema Now, the annual festival that showcases the best in Spanish films. Revenge is a recurring theme, especially in dark comedy Something Is About to Happen and in Hugo Ruíz’s nightmarish character study One Night With Adela. Abortion, which is legal but strictly regulated and contentious in Spain, is at the center of both touching dramedy Mamífera and of Jaione Camborda’s The Rye Horn. You’ll find numerous musical groups, a few films set during Franco’s Spain, and at least two significant pet dogs.
Most of all, though, you’ll find women. You’ll find them writing, directing, and, above all, starring in this year’s superb lineup of films. Maria Rodríguez Soto plays the heart of Mamífera, a performance that won her the prestigious SXSW jury award. You’ll find seasoned professionals such as Lola Dueñas (Foremost by Night) and rising stars such as Laia Costa (Un Amor) delivering powerful lead performances. Malena Alterio appears not once, but twice, operating as the strongest force in both Something Is About to Happen and Under Therapy. And you’ll find stories that center women—not as docile victims, career-obsessed workhorses, or any number of other tired stereotypes—but as complicated, multidimensional, and thrillingly immoral human beings. Here are a few recommendations to get you started.
Mamífera
People spend their whole lives looking for what Lola (Maria Rodríguez Soto) and Bruno (Enric Auquer) appear to have with ease in Mamífera, the stirring Catalonian dramedy from writer-director Liliana Torres. They’ve got jobs they like, fulfilling social lives, thriving plants, and an adorable dog. They live happily together in a bright apartment, where their loving shower sex is only outdone in intimacy by what comes after: Bruno sitting behind a nude Lola so he can blow-dry the hair on her head, under her armpits, and, jokingly, beneath her underwear.
At 40, Lola is the only person in her social circle who neither has kids nor wants them, so it comes as a great surprise when she discovers she’s 10 weeks pregnant (and an unfortunate irony, considering she’s been looking after a friend who is pouring her money, time, and emotional energy into repeated IVF treatments). Grounded by an extraordinary, SXSW award-winning performance by Soto (reminiscent of Phoebe Waller–Bridge in Fleabag, but Spanish and less tortured), and a dash of visual playfulness courtesy of Lola’s career as a collage artist, Mamífera paints a touching portrait of a happily child-free woman who is unwillingly presented with an opportunity to reconsider that decision—and confronted with a world that seems to think she should.
Mamífera screens at 2:30 p.m. on June 2 and at 5:10 p.m. on June 3. $13.
Saturn Return
“A good band needs two things,” declares one of the many narrators of Saturn Return, Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez’s moody rock band drama that took home top prizes at this year’s Malaga Film Festival. The first thing, our narrator tells us, is a good drummer (naturally, he’s the drummer). The second thing, he says, is that a band needs to sound like its city. “Take the Velvet Underground, they’re New York. Joy Division, they’re Manchester.” And Los Planetas, the cult band that took ahold of Spain’s indie scene in the ’90s, is undeniably Granada.
Saturn Return is a fictionalized account of Los Planetas trying to claw their way out of a creative rut to make their third album, but it’s no ordinary musical biopic. It charts a painful, drugged-up moment in the band’s history triggered by the departure of bassist May (Stéphanie Magnin), whose dynamic with the band’s lead singer (Daniel Ibáñez Rodríguez) and lead guitarist (Cristalino) is ripe for a Challengers meme. At the start of the movie, though, the filmmakers warn us: “This is not a film about Los Planetas. This is a film about the legend of Los Planetas.” The disclaimer rings true as Lacuesta and Rodríguez’s stylish and singular interpretation of the band unfolds, as hazy and distorted as their indie-rock songs, as surreal as a Federico García Lorca poem.
Saturn Return screens at 7:15 p.m. on May 31. $13.
Something Is About to Happen
Lucía (a splendid and versatile Malena Alterio) only resorts to becoming a taxi driver after she dramatically loses her job as a software developer, but she seems to be made for the job. Charming, quirky, and full of embellished anecdotes, the middle-aged woman befriends a colorful cast of characters as she roams Madrid’s streets behind the wheel. Among them is Roberta (Aitana Sánchez–Gijón), an acclaimed theater producer who becomes one of Lucía’s closest confidants, and Santiago (José Luis Torrijo), a friendly novelist set on taking Lucía out on a date. But Lucía is holding her breath for the handsome, mysterious neighbor (Rodrigo Poisón) she once shared a kiss with, who introduced himself only as Calaf, after the prince in Puccini’s Turandot.
Adapted from the 2018 novel from acclaimed Spanish writer Juan José Millás, Something Is About to Happen is an empathetic sketch of a delusional woman. As Lucía’s fantasies become obsessions, and her hurt feelings give way to vengeful crusades, Antonio Méndez Esparza’s film transforms from an eccentric dramedy into a gripping, metatextual thriller that turns out to have more in common with Taxi Driver than just a job.
Something Is About to Happen screens at 6:45 p.m. on June 2. $13.
Un Amor
A film about a woman in her late 30s quitting her job and escaping to the European countryside may sound romantic, but Isabel Coixet’s Un Amor is a far cry from Under the Tuscan Sun. Based on Sara Mesa’s hit novel of the same name, the film follows Nat (Laia Costa), a city dweller who gives up her job as a translator for refugees and rents a run-down house in a small Spanish village. Instead of sunshine and serenity, Nat finds a perpetually overcast town ruled by hushed gossip, patriarchal hierarchy, and bartered trades. The kind of town where, say, the guy who sells you vegetables might offer to fix your leaky roof in exchange for a quickie.
Nat, brought to life in an enthralling performance by Costa, negotiates that proposal and much more as she tries to make a decent, pleasurable life for herself among people who can’t seem to mind their own business—especially when it comes to an independent woman indulging her desires. Not afraid to wade into morally murky, perverse, and sometimes disturbing territory, Un Amor isn’t the easiest watch, but its psychosexual and societal inquiries will stay with you long after its cathartic finale.
Un Amor screens at 7 p.m. on June 1 and at 4 p.m. on June 4. $13.
Under Therapy
In typical whodunit fashion, Under Therapy begins with three couples who have been mysteriously summoned to a vacant location, where they are instructed to follow a few rules laid out in a series of numbered envelopes. The host, however, isn’t a reclusive millionaire; she’s a couples therapist, and she’s summoned six of her clients not to solve a murder, but to try and solve their marital troubles.
It’s no surprise that Under Therapy, directed by Gerardo Herrero, is adapted from a play (written by Matías del Federico). The charming dramedy is contained almost entirely to one room, and its cheeky dialogue whizzes by at a breakneck speed as the three couples start to open up about their private lives, often unwillingly. It’s not long before the rhetorical knives come out, particularly between Daniel (Fele Martínez) and Esteban (Antonio Pagudo), who mix as well as water and oil. The six-person ensemble is strong from top to bottom, but in the end it’s the quietest performance—Malena Alterio’s submissive Marta—that is the most memorable, lending this entertaining romp a poignant feminist edge.
Under Therapy screens at 9:35 p.m. on June 1 and at 4:30 p.m. on June 2. $13.
2024 Spanish Cinema Now, co-presented by AFI Silver Theatre and the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain, runs from May 31 to June 6 at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. silver.afi.com.