SPANISH FILM AND CULTURE FESTIVAL!

cinEScultura Edition XVI.

The Spanish film and culture festival cinEScultura is taking place in Regensburg for the 16th time this year. The festival originated in 2008 from a project seminar at the University of Regensburg, which was intended to promote the distribution of Spanish-language films and also served as a practice-oriented project in cultural management. A lot has happened since then and the festival has grown. In addition to films and two coveted film awards, there will be other cultural events in 2023, such as concerts and art exhibitions and a special program for the Picasso anniversary year. With this year’s theme “Humanity family above/under water”, cinEScultura once again aims to send a strong signal for cultural diversity.
Since this year, there has also been a new cooperation partner with Ingolstadt: the Spanish cultural association Centro Español is showing the cinEScultura program at the Ingolstadt adult education center.

Here is an overview of the most important dates for cinESCultura 2023:

Opening concert with Verde Prato on April 25 at 8 pm at Jazzclub Regensburg

The young Basque singer-songwriter has delighted critics and audiences alike in Spain and has already been acclaimed at many renowned festivals. The naked neo-folk of her first album, “Kondaira eder hura” (2021), was one of the best of the year in Spain according to critics and took her to festivals such as Sónar and Primavera Sound (Barcelona), Imaterial (Évora), BBK Live (Bilbao), Monky Week (Seville) and Expo City Dubai 2022. Her voice is at home in the popular songbook of many different cultures and is the mainstay of her compositions. The voice is the most direct instrument of transmission there is, and Verde Prato’s is charged with emotion and movement, with breath and trembling, full of unique sensitivity and beauty. Verde Prato is well on the way to becoming an important, even pioneering artist with a great future.

Opening party on April 26 at 7 p.m. in the Ostentor cinema and cinema pub with free admission

The program includes short films and a concert by the band Latinophonia. Representatives of the City of Regensburg and the University of Regensburg as well as Turespaña will welcome the Regensburg audience alongside other guests from Spain.

Opening film I “Unicorn Wars” on April 27 at 6 p.m. in the Filmgalerie

Producer Chelo Loureiro will be our guest from May 3 to 7
An anti-war tale, absolutely brutal and merciless, starring teddy bears at war with the unicorns. To ensure the safety of the bear people, the bear army sends a group of young recruits on a dangerous mission into the magical forest. Among the selected bears, who are all inexperienced in war, are the twin brothers Azulín and Gordi. In the course of the mission, conflicts arise between the brothers and doubts arise as to who are actually the good guys and who are the bad guys in the war … This film won the Goya Film Award in the Best Animated Film category. Director Alberto Vázquez (*1980, A Coruña) studied art at the University of Vigo and then specialized in illustration. In addition to his work as a comic artist and illustrator, he also produces animated films. With the help of fantasy worlds and mythical creatures, Vázquez aims to draw attention to problems in today’s world. “Unicorn Wars” is his second feature-length animated film.

Opening film II “The Beasts / As Bestas ” on April 27 at 20:15 in the Filmgalerie

To go or to stay? In search of an idyllic, peaceful place, Antoine and Olga move from a city in France to a small Galician village. The couple enjoy the peace and quiet, the contact with nature and spending time together in the vegetable garden. However, living with the locals is anything but idyllic: when an energy company wants to turn the village into a wind farm and the residents have to make a decision, a conflict arises with the Anta family brothers and the situation spirals out of control … A thriller that slowly simmers away and has a Western feel to it. The film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen was awarded 9 Goya film prizes in 2023.

Carlos Vermut exhibition 28.4.-1. 5 in the Filmgalerie

in the presence of actresses Ángela Boix and Miquel Insua
Carlos Vermut (1980, Madrid) is a Spanish film director and screenwriter. Before starting his film career, he published several comics
and worked as an illustrator for newspapers such as El Mundo. His unclassifiable debut “Diamond Flash” (2011) is considered a cult film and made him one of the most authentic voices in the Spanish film scene overnight. With his second film, “Magical Girl” (2014), he won the award for Best Film and Best Director at the prestigious San Sebastian International Film Festival. His latest film, “Mantícora” (2023), is a story about love and monsters.

Picasso Tapas Rally
28. and 29.04. | 17-21 h | Restaurants Bodega, Tapas, Boleros and Degginger

Each restaurant will serve a tapa inspired by Picasso’s work or life together with a glass of wine or another drink for a total of €5. This is to honor the artist on the 50th anniversary of his death and to celebrate a typical Spanish custom in Regensburg. In Spain, it is customary to have a glass of wine and small appetizers in various bars in the evening. People chat, meet up with friends and acquaintances and enjoy a bite to eat in a relaxed atmosphere with other people. Participants will receive a personalized stamp card, which can be purchased in the restaurants mentioned or in the pop-up store from 23 April. On 30.04. at 12 noon there will be a big raffle in the Degginger pop-up store: Raffle prizes include four vouchers for dinner (worth €50 each) in one of the four restaurants, tickets for the exhibitions “Mythos Spanien” at Kunsthalle München and “We Love Picasso” (see p. 4) at Kunstform Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg, as well as two season tickets for the Picasso film series at Auktionshaus Keup and other surprise prizes.

Photo exhibition: Spain – Portrait of a country
20.04.-08.05. | Stadtbücherei, Haidplatz 8

This exhibition is based on the photo book España, retrato de un País. The book was created on the basis of the work A Day in the History of Spain, which brought together professional photographers in 1987 to portray a country that had just joined the modern world. In the 21st century, this vision is updated and offers a different view of Spain’s diversity, not only in terms of culture, but also its landscape, gastronomy, society and historical monuments. The project, which involves more than forty recognized photographers such as Miguel Trillo, Cristina García Rodero, Eduardo Nave and Carmela García, has also been made available to amateur photographers through a competition on social networks, who can publish their images as an epilogue in this book. The exhibition is organized by the seasons, which determine the order of the selected photos. In this way, famous Spanish landscapes alternate with lesser-known scenes, customs and popular festivals to demonstrate the mastery of Spain’s photographic language.

Photo exhibition: Soria – city of poets
17.04.-29.04.2023 | DEZ level 2 (area in front of Müller)

The old Castilian town of Soria has exerted a magical attraction on some of the most important Spanish poets since the middle of the 19th century: The most important representative of Spanish Romanticism, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870), repeatedly spent long periods in the provincial capital, which was shaped by the Middle Ages, from 1860 onwards and created a literary monument to it in his famous horror story “El Monte de las Ánimas” (“The Mountain of Souls”), populated by Templars and ghosts. Antonio Machado (1875-1939) came to the medieval town on the banks of the Duero River in 1907 to take up a position as a lecturer in French language and literature. Shortly after his arrival, he fell in love with the daughter of his innkeeper. It was to be the love of his life. Leonor and her hometown both became a muse for the great poet, and we owe one of the most important works of Spanish poetry to this source of inspiration: most of the poems in Machado’s famous poetry collection “Campos de Castilla” were written during his happy time in Soria. Gerardo Diego (1896-1987), a native of Santander, followed in Antonio Machado’s footsteps as a lecturer in French in Soria in 1920. Diego is regarded as one of the most important representatives of the Generación del 27 and in his verses he created a magnificent literary monument to the city between tradition and modernity.

Street Art: Gato M
23.04.-11.05.2023 | Degginger, Wahlenstraße 17 | Performace and workshops 23.-30.04. daily from 3 to 6 pm

GATO-M became a street artist in his native Madrid in the 1990s, devoting himself in particular to so-called tags (signatures). He found his motivation and inspiration in the street artist Muelle (Juan Carlos Arguello), who is considered a pioneer of graffiti in Spain. After his death in 1995, GATO-M interrupted his creative phase as a street artist. In 2009, the paintings of a painter friend of his served as a catalyst for him to continue his training in various styles such as abstraction and also Picasso and Dalí reproductions, which he sold to tourists in Valencia. After spending time in various Spanish cities, he returned to graffiti in 2012. He admired artists such as Banksy and Blek le Rat, whose works, with their socio-political criticism, resonate with his own artistic sensibilities. As a self-taught artist, he explores new techniques such as stencils and is constantly trying out new things in search of his own style. He moved to Málaga, where he showed his first stencil on the street, at that time already under the name GATO-M: Gato because that’s what the true Madrilenians call themselves and the letter M for Malaga, his new adopted home. This work met with a very positive response and became a popular photo motif. Now he has found a style that combines a critical attitude with humor and graphic poetry. He received important recognition when he was invited to participate in the international project Maus-Soho-Málaga, with artists such as Obey, Roa, Fath47 and Boamistura. His work Charles Chaplin pirata was selected by Google Arts & Culture and exhibited at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Málaga. Regensburg was his place of artistic activity for several years. Since 2021 he has been living in Madrid again, where he has created works for hotels, stores and restaurants. He has been collaborating with cinEScultura since 2020. Some of the works from his time in Regensburg were part of an exhibition of street art at the Thon-Dittmer Palais. He has also exhibited at Café-Lila and created works for the restaurants Wanderlust and Marple & Stringer.

Further information on the program and the guests at cinEScultura2023 at www.cinescultura.de

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