Tuesday, 21 June 2022 12:00
The Formentera Office of Culture is pleased to present the 16th Cinema a la Fresca, the outdoor film series offering islanders and tourists the chance to enjoy summer evenings and classic and contemporary selections from Spanish and international cinema free of charge.
Creative director Véronique Landy has put together a programme of original versions of 33 films from the 1920s to present day that will be screened between July and September. Films start at 10.00pm and happen on Tuesdays in Sant Francesc (Jardí de ses Eres), Thursdays in Sant Ferran (Plaça de l'Església) and Fridays in La Mola (Casa del Poble courtyard).
Susana Labrador, councillor of culture, encouraged locals and tourists alike "to enjoy this free cultural activity that includes films of various themes". She described Cinema a la Fresca as "an all-ages leisure activity put on in three different locations to liven things up on summer nights".
Programming
Cinema a la Fresca starts Tuesday 28 June in Sant Francesc with Portrait of a Woman on Fire, part of the local programme for International Pride Day LGTBIQA+. In it, filmmaker Céline Sciamma tells the story of painter Marianne, commissioned by a countess to paint the wedding portrait of daughter Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent and has serious doubts about her upcoming marriage. Marianne must craft Héloise's portrait without her knowing, so she devotes herself to researching her subject on a daily basis.
On Thursday 30 June, the crowd at Plaça de l'Església in Sant Ferran can see Adú as part of the World Refugee Day programme. Directed by Salvador Calvo, the film tells three stories that are linked by a central theme. None of the protagonists know their paths are doomed to cross or that their lives will never be the same again. The three stories painfully map a continent condemned by greed and human misery. Adú is a tribute to the courage and mental strength of migrants.
Friday 1 July, the courtyard of the Casa del Poble in La Mola will host the screening of director Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire. In the film, Blanche, who belongs to a once powerful southern family, is a middle-aged, decadent woman made mentally imbalanced by a life trapped in the past. Her unstable behaviour creates conflicts that alter the lives of the people who live with her.
Cinema a la Fresca also offers films for younger audiences like The Boy and the Beast. The film tells the story of Kyuta, a lonely boy living in Tokyo, and a supernatural creature named Kumatetsu living isolated in a fantasy world who becomes Kyuta's friend and spiritual guide. Little Vampire, meanwhile, is an animated adaptation of Joann Sfar's comic book of the same name. The film's diminutive protagonist lives in a haunted house with a merry band of monsters, but is nevertheless bored to death. One night he secretly escapes from the mansion with his faithful bulldog to find new adventures and friends.
Documentary cinema is on the docket too. Buñuel: A Surrealist Filmmaker gives audiences their chance to discover a director known for universality; From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses casts the story of early German cinema as the history of social and cultural upheaval that shook the First Republic from 1918 to 1933; and, finally, I Am Not Your Negro, tells the story of the African-American movement in modern America.
Attendees will be able to enjoy film noir with Bong Joon-ho's 2019 Oscar- and Palme d'Or-winning Parasite; Sydney Lumet's Serpico and Marco Bellochio's The Traitor, not to mention comedies like Ninotchka (Ernest Lubitsch), The Rocket to Calabuch (Luis Berlanga) and A Night in Casablanca (Archie Mayo).
In some of the other films, the lead is love. Leo McCarey's You and I; Gaza mon amour, from Mohammed Abou Nasser and Ahmad Abou Nasser, and Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. There will also be space on the marquee for sci-fi, with Denis Villeneuve's Dune.
An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu), Memories of My Father (Fernando Trueba), The Idol (Hany Abu-Assad) and Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke) will serve viewers up with visions of family portraits. With Aki Kaurismäki's The Other Side of Hope, Jean Luc Godard's Vivre sa Vie and Cloe Zhao's Nomadland, we will enjoy portraits of several unique lives.
Once again this year, 26 July in Sant Francesc's Jardí de ses Eres, one of the highlights will be pianist Jota Hidalgo's live-action soundtrack for Buster Keaton's silent film Seven Chances.
21 June 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera
This Monday 4 July, Formentera-based artist Natalia Lisinicchia returns to the Centre Antoni Tur "Gabrielet" to show her latest feminist artwork. Suaves is the title of an exhibition with which Lisinicchia conveys "the acceptance of what we are, aligned with the diversity of our forms, desires, identities and sensations". The exhibition opens Monday at 7.00pm and will remain open until 12 July.
