In the year of the birth centennial of Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007), PELíCULA would like to pay tribute to one of the main filmmakers in the history of cinema, Ingmar Bergman.
To honor the Swedish director, and thanks to the collaboration of the Embassy of Sweden and the UP Film Center, PELíCULA 2018 is proud to present this special section, “Bergman in Spain”. The program features two Bergman’s classic films, Wild Strawberries and Persona, plus two films by Spanish directors whose works have been influenced by the Swedish master – Carlos Saura’s Cría Cuervos and Pedro Almodóvar’s Tacones Lejanos.
Bergman in Spain will be shown in two venues, at Greenbelt 3 Cinemas on 8 October 2018 (Monday) and at Cine Adarna, UP Diliman on 15 and 16 October 2018 (Monday and Tuesday).
Below are the films included in Bergman in Spain and their respective details:
Brief description of Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) by Ingmar Bergman
Professor Isak Borg, 78, is summoned from his home in Stockholm to the University of Lund in southern Sweden to receive an honorary doctorate. He travels there with his daughter-in-law, who feels resentful toward him because his son, her husband, displays all the egotistical traits of the old man and does not want to have children. They encounter three hikers and take them along in the car with them to Lund. While visiting his family’s former summer house, Borg is assailed by nightmares in which his failings are brought home to him.
Brief description of Persona by Ingmar Bergman
Elisabet Vogler is a famous actress. In the middle of a performance of Electra, she falls silent. Even prolonged treatment at a psychiatric clinic fails to make her speak. The doctor in charge suggests to her nurse Alma that she should spend some time in isolation on the coast with their patient. Faced by the obstinate yet also sympathetic silence of Elisabet, Alma begins to tell her more than she should …
Brief description of Cría Cuervos by Carlos Saura
Ana remembers everything that happened since the death of her father twenty years before. Her nine-year old daughter believes she has power over the life and death of those who live with her. There is another power Ana believes she possesses: invoking her mother’s presence. With her, dead years ago, conjures up a relationship full of tenderness and, sometimes, domination.
Brief description of Tacones Lejanos by Pedro Almodóvar
Becky del Páramo has had almost as many husbands as gold discs. She abandoned her daughter to focus on her career as a pop singer. Rebeca was raised by her father but remains obsessed by her absent mother. She even marries one of Becky’s former lovers. But when Becky flies in to do a concert in Madrid their meeting is tense and uncomfortable. The barriers imposed by the wall of silence are evident and the complex web of love and hate between mother and daughter unravels.
Bergman in Spain is part of Instituto Cervantes Manila’s PELÍCULA Manila Spanish Film Festival. Tickets for Greenbelt 3 Cinema screenings cost P100.00 (US $1.85) while Cine Adarna, UP Diliman screenings have FREE entrance!