The UK’s largest annual celebration of Spanish and Latin American culture is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. ¡Viva! Festival will be touring cities around the UK, presenting audiences with modern examples of films from Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America to cinemas nationwide. The festival will come to Sheffield’ Showroom from May 7 until June 17 with four carefully selected films that encapsulate Spanish and Latin American culture.
The tour is presented by HOME, Manchester’s centre for international contemporary culture and one of the UK’s top performing independent cinemas. Moreover, the tour will embody HOME’s 2019 theme: Celebrating Women in Global Cinema. As a result, the films will revolve around female creative talent in the roles of director, writer, producer or protagonist. This adds an additional facet to the festival’s important objective of cross-border collaboration, by bringing attention to women’s contributions to and roles in cinema.
Rachel Hayward, HOME’s Head of Film said: “At a time in history when the issue of borders is predominant, we welcome our 25th annual celebration of cross-border creativity and partnerships. For a quarter of a century, we have been honoured to bring the best new film and creative work from Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America to UK audiences, and we look forward to continuing to do so over the next 25 years! ¡Disfrutad el festival!”
The festival’s film programme was carefully curated by HOME’s Rachel Hayward, Jessie Gibbs, ¡Viva! Festival Coordinator, and Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and HOME’s Senior Visiting Curator. The selected works that will be presented in the festival aim to both celebrate and pay homage to 25 years of cross-border creativity, collaborations and partnerships.
¡Viva! screenings in Sheffield:
- Tues 7 May – Petra
- Tues 21 May – Miriam Miente
- Mon 3 June – Jean-Francois and the Meaning of Life
- Mon 17 June – Quién te cantará
Find out more information here.
