[Movies] Eclectic crime plots at Instituto Cervantes

MANILA, Philippines — Spanish cultural center Instituto Cervantes will showcase a veritable feast of intriguing movies with crisp storytelling, excellent performances, and first-rate hard-boiled dialogue this month. Screening will be every Saturday, 2pm, at Instituto Cervantes’ Salon de Actos. Titled Cine Negro (film noir or stylish crime dramas), the film cycle will be in Spanish with English subtitles.

Cine Negro opens on May 12 with “El secreto de sus ojo (The Secret in their Eyes),” an Argentinean crime thriller-drama about a retired legal counsellor, Benjamín Espósito. He writes a novel, hoping to find closure for one of his unresolved homicide cases, as well as for his unreciprocated love for his superior — both still haunt him decades later. The movie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Screening on May 19 is “Un Oso Rojo (Red Bear),” a rarely-screened movie about an ex-con who has just been released from prison after killing a cop in a botched robbery. He comes back to a family that no longer exists: his wife now lives with another man. His daughter doesn’t know him. 

Closing the film cycle on May 25 is “Días de Santiago (Days of Santiago),” Peruvian filmmaker Josué Mendez’s feature directorial debut. The movie recounts the story of a 23-year-old war veteran who returns to Lima after spending 6 years fighting terrorists, the Peruvian drug mafia, and a nationalist war against Ecuador. He is unable to smoothly transition to life back home.

Cine Negro is organized in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in the Philippines and the Spanish Agency International Cooperation for Development (AECID). – Rappler.com

(Admission to all the screenings is free. For more information, visit http://manila.cervantes.es.)

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