Editor

The Campo Viejo Spanish Film Festival
March 19th-30th 2008
Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar.

The annual Spanish Film Festival returns to the IFI from March 19th-30th 2008. Campo Viejo Spanish Film Festival covers ‘Spanish Films’ in very global terms, in that The IFI will showcase films from Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay aswell of course, films from Spain over the course of the festival.

This year’s event sees new releases from actors-turned-directors Antonio Banderas (Summer Rain/El Camino de los Ingleses) and Gael García Bernal (Déficit), Icíar Bollaín (Mataharis), and much anticipated new work from directors Julio Medem and Jaime Rosales.

We are also fortunate with the timing of the festival to coincide with the cinema release of Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orpanage (El Orfanato), from the Pan’s Labyrinth stable. It will be screening every day of the festival.

Newcomers that we’d like to recommend in particular to audiences in Ireland are Uraguay's Rodrigo Plá (The Zone), Argentinian Lucía Puenzo (XXY) and Mexicans duo Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán (Cochochi).

And a final word about those who make it happen: Instituto Cervantes and The Embassy of Spain in Ireland have lent us invaluable support and advice for the second year in a row, and our gracious thanks is due to them. Our generous and patient sponsors at Campo Viejo (please come and enjoy a glass during the Festival!) are a most welcome addition to proceedings this year. Lastly, we would like to thank Viva!, our partners at Cornerhouse in Manchester who select the films for us while they are busy staging their very own festival.

A selection of films from this year’s festival will be traveling to the EYE Cinema in Galway on the 24th & 25th March.