The Film Festival pays tribute to Víctor Erice’s film ”The Spirit of the Beehive” on the 50th anniversary of its premiere

22nd LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL– 22 FICLPGC (April 14 to 23)

  

• The different versions of the 22nd film festival’s poster and the cycle “Echoes of a spirit. 50 years of The Spirit of the Beehive”, curated by film critic and programmer Jaime Pena, highlight the anniversary
• The selection of works in the cycle includes the screening of The Long Day Closes, and the presence of its director, Terence Davies, will be celebrated with a retrospective devoted to the British filmmaker

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Tuesday, March 14, 2023.- In 2023, The Spirit of the Beehive celebrates the 50th anniversary of its premiere and the reception of the San Sebastian Film Festival’s highest award, the 1973 Golden Shell. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has wanted to pay tribute to such anniversary by stressing the value of this film masterpiece with a cycle that revolves around the classic and that has been curated by the critic and programmer Jaime Pena and which includes, among other pearls, the screening of The Long Day Closes with the presence of its director Terence Davies.

Likewise, the poster for this 22nd edition of the Gran-Canarian event, which was presented today by Luis Miranda, the director of the Festival, celebrates the anniversary and portrays, in one of its versions, one of the main characters of the film, Ana, in the same poses as the three wise monkeys. Whereas, in its other version, the poster depicts the monster that fascinates Ana, James Whale’s Frankenstein, again tripled and mimicking her.

“Echoes of a Spirit. 50 years of The Spirit of the Beehive” is the title under which Galician Jaime Pena presents ten works connected, in one way or another, with that of Víctor Erice, “a fundamental film“, according to the director of the Festival, a landmark in cinema as a state of art that, in the words of Luis Miranda, “has a great capacity for evocation, connects with any type of audience anywhere in the world and has had a real influence on the cinema of the last 50 years”.

Childhood, poetry, cinema and the fascination it provokes are some of this selection’s links, which includes great film jewels, starting with Erice’s own piece and the aforementioned The Long Day Closes by Terence Davies (UK, 1992, 85 min.), as well as Le printemps by Marcel Hanoun (France, 1971, 82 min.); The Traveler (Mossafer) by Abas Kiarostami (Iran, 1974, 84 min. ); Cría Cuervos by Carlos Saura (Spain, 1976, 110 min.); Los motivos de Berta by José Luis Guerín (Spain, 1983, 85 min.); The Blood (O Sangue) by Pedro Costa (Portugal, 1989, 99 min.); Ponette by Jacques Doillon (France, 1996, 90 min.); Ya viene, aguanta, riégueme, mátame by Colectivo Los Hijos (Spain, 2009, 8 min.); Summer 1993 by Carla Simón (Spain, 2017, 96 min.) and Train Again by Peter Tscherkassky (Austria, 2021, 20 min.).

Comprehensive retrospective of Terence Davies’ work

Terence Davies’ attendance, owing to the tribute paid to the creation he considers a “masterpiece of world cinema”, will be celebrated by the Festival’s programming team with a retrospective of the British filmmaker’s complete works. A total of ten titles composing a cinema that, as Luis Miranda pointed out, has “a classic, lyrical and very personal spirit. Of a formal and narrative elegance that hardly has a parallel in contemporary cinema”.

 

The Terence Davies Thrilogie: Children (1976, 47 min.); Madonna and Child (1980, 30 min.); Death and Transfiguration (1983)

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

The Long Day Closes (1992)

The Neon Bible (1995)

The House of Mirth (2000)

Of Time and the City (2008)

The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

Sunset Song (2015)

A Quiet Passion (2016)

Benediction (2021)