MoMA PRESENTS EXHIBITION OF SPANISH CINEMA OF DISSENT MADE DURING THE FRANCO ERA Inventive Features Made During 1939–75 Fascist Regime Circumvented Censors Through Dark Humor and Symbolic Tales Spain (Un)Censored October 17–November 5, 2007 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater NEW YORK, September 21, 2007—The Museum of Modern Art presents an exhibition of Spanish films that explores an era when filmmakers sought creative freedom through cinema, during the culturally oppressive regime of General Francisco Franco (1939–75). Spain (Un)Censored, which is presented October 17–November 5, 2007, in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, features dramatically expressive films that awakened peoples’ consciousness about social realities during—and despite—the dictatorship. Among the features in the 20-film exhibition are some well-known classics such as Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana (1961) and Luis García Berlanga’s Welcome Mister Marshall! (1952), as well as many works rarely screened in the United States like Jose Luis Borau’s Furtivos (Poachers, 1975) and Basilio Patino’s Nine Letters to Bertha (1965) and Songs for After the War (1971), both of which will be introduced by the director on October 19. The exhibition is organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and Marta Sánchez, independent curator, in collaboration with the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) of the Spanish Ministry of Culture. After coming to power as the victor in the Spanish Civil War, Franco clamped down on trade unions, outlawed regional languages, raised religion to a position of overarching influence, and introduced censorship of the arts. Provoked by the system under which they lived, Spanish directors told stories about the peoples’ hopes and troubles through the use of humor and symbols that reached their audiences while sidestepping the scrutiny of the censors. Until recently, this fertile filmmaking period has received little international attention. Now, more than three decades later, the films in Spain (Un)Censored reveal a daring and formally innovative era of Spanish cinema. Bunuel’s Viridiana, a film that challenged the belief systems of Catholicism, exemplified the contradictions between traditional and modern values that were brought to the fore in the 1960s, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961. The director had submitted his script to the censors, who had approved it, only to find the authorities attempting to confiscate his finished film on the grounds of obscenity and blasphemy. The film had to be smuggled out of the country for its victorious screening in Cannes and was finally premiered in Spain in 1977, after Franco’s death. The films in Spain (Un)Censored reveal the inventive ends to which directors went in making cinema that spoke about their countrymen’s plight. They range from playful satires such as El Verduga (The Executioner, 1963), a powerful examination of the death penalty, to skewerings of the class system, as in Juan Antonio Bardem’s Muerte de un Ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955). Some captured the effects of hidden traumas, such as the moody and atmospheric El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973), which for many has elements that inspired Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed El Laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) set after the Spanish Civil War. The exhibition also features unconventional perspectives on relationships in José Luis Borau’s Furtivos (Poachers) and Juan Antonio Bardem’s Calle Mayor (Main Street, 1956); subversions of gender politics in films such as Miguel Picazo’s La Tía Tula (Aunt Tula, 1964); and an absurdist cross-dressing drama Mi Querida Señorita (My Dearest Señorita, 1971), directed by Jaime de Armiñán. Perhaps the greatest contradiction of all was that the state funded and promoted many of these films to appear progressive to the Western world, only to be the subject of the veiled ridicule and scorn now quite apparent in many of the works. Two additional events coincide with Spain (Un)Censored including a book launch, Breaking the Code: Daring Films That Mocked the Repression of Franco’s Spain, edited by the Filmoteca de Castilla y León and published by the Regional Government of Castile and León, at the Instituto Cervantes at Amster Yard, on October 18; and a panel discussion with director Basilio Martin Patino; Fernando Lara, Director of ICAA, and Chema de la Peña, director of De Salamanca a ninguna parte (From Salamanca to Nowhere, 2002); and moderated by Richard Peña, Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which takes place at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, New York University, on October 20. Spain (Un)Censored travels to the BFI Southbank, London, in January 2008. For more information on the book launch, panel discussion, and touring venues visit www.pragda.com. Support for the exhibition comes from: The Instituto Cervantes, New York; the Consulate General of Spain, New York; Embassy of Spain, Washington, D.C.; Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas, Filmoteca, AECI, of the Spanish Ministry of Exterior Affairs and Cooperation. Panel and book launch sponsored by The Regional Government of Castile and Leon. Special thanks to Roberto Varela Consul For Cultural Affairs in NY, and Stacey Picullell, intern. Images are available at www.moma.org/press **************************** PRESS SCREENINGS ************************ R.S.V.P. to [email protected] or call (212) 708-9847. Thursday, September 27 (The Roy and Niuta Titus 1 Theater) 10:30 a.m. ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! (Welcome Mister Marshall!, 1952). Directed by Luis Garcia Berlanga. 78 min. 12:00 p.m. Furtivos (Poachers, 1975). Directed by Jose Luis Borau. 82 min. New print. Thursday, October 4 (The Roy and Niuta Titus 1 Theater) 10:30 a.m. Muerte de un Ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955). Directed by Juan Antonio Bardem. 84 min. New print. 12:00 p.m. Nueve Cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Bertha, 1965). Directed by Basilio Martín Patino. 95 min. No. 84 Press Contact: Paul Power, (212) 708-9847, or [email protected] For downloadable images, please visit www.moma.org/press Please contact me for user name and password. Public Information: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019 Hours: Wednesday through Monday: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday: 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed Tuesday Museum Adm: $20 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs) Target Free Friday Nights 4:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Film Adm: $10 adults; $8 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D. $6 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only) Subway: E or V train to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street Bus: On Fifth Avenue, take the M1, M2, M3, M4, or M5 to 53rd Street. On Sixth Avenue, take the M5, M6, or M7 to 53rd Street. Or take the M57 and M50 crosstown buses on 57th and 50th Streets. The public may call (212) 708-9400 for detailed Museum information. Visit us at www.moma.org SPAIN (UN)CENSORED SCREENING SCHEDULE [All films are from Spain and in Spanish, with English subtitles, except where noted] Wednesday, October 17 6:00 Muerte de un Ciclista (Death of a Cyclist). 1955. Directed by Juan Antonio Bardem. With Alberto Closas, Lucía Bosé. Bardem’s most celebrated solo effort concerns a university professor and his well- connected mistress, who strike a bicyclist while out driving. To hide their affair, they leave the man to die. This choice destroys their lives and epitomizes the shallowness of their upper-class lifestyle. The contrast between Madrid’s rich and poor districts is well captured, but censorship forced Bardem to punish the adulterous woman in a melodramatic ending. 84 min. New print. 8:00 ¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall! (Welcome Mister Marshall!). 1952. Directed by Luis García Berlanga. With José Isbert, Lolita Sevilla. The run-down Castilian village of Villar del Río rouses itself from slumber at the news that Americans representing the Marshall Plan are due to visit. The mayor, eager to snare a hefty slice of economic aid, prepares to welcome “Mr. Marshall” with toasts of lemonade and sangria. Persuaded by a passing entertainment agent that the village’s dried-up fountain, blackshrouded women, and listless men will never attract the Americans’ benefaction, the town sets about preparing another kind of welcome. 78 min. Thursday, October 18 6:00 El Pisito (The Little Flat). 1958. Directed by Marco Ferreri, Isidoro M. Ferri. Screenplay by Rafael Azcona, Ferreri.With José Luis López Vázquez, Mary Carrillo. Ferreri’s anti-bourgeois black comedy centers on the life of Rodolfo, a middle-class man who leases a room in the overcrowded apartment of Doña Martina, a crotchety, dying octogenarian. Until he can afford his own place, Rodolfo cannot marry his embittered fiancée, who persuades her meek boyfriend to propose to Martina in order to inherit the apartment. 80 minutes. 8:30 Plácido. 1961. Directed by Luis García Berlanga. Screenplay by Berlanga, Rafael Azcona, Ennio Flaiano. With Casto Sendra-Cassen, José Luis López Vázquez. Academy Award–nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, Plácido is a comedy about an impoverished man who spends the day before Christmas trying to avoid foreclosure on his motorbike. His frantic dealings with bankers and lawyers are set against the film’s satirical canvas of a provincial town putting on a showy Christmas campaign called “Seat a Poor Man at Your Table.” 88 min. Friday, October 19 6:00 Nueve Cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Bertha).