Spanish lesbian romance Carmen and Lola is one of the queer highlights at the upcoming Spanish Film Festival, returning to Brisbane’s Palace Cinemas next week.
This year’s event is the 22nd annual Spanish Film Festival. It features a curated program of 32 films from Spain and all around Latin America.
Carmen and Lola
Bilbao-born writer-director Arantxa Echevarría’s Carmen and Lola screens at the festival in Spanish, however, with English subtitles. It delivers an empathetic portrayal of forbidden love in a repressive society.
Carmen (Rosy Rodríguez) and Lola (Zaira Romero) live on the outskirts of Madrid in a poor and fiercely Catholic gypsy community. The community expects women to marry very young and bear many children.
The brash Carmen has no problems with that. Early in the film, she eagerly prepares for her upcoming wedding. But then, she comes under the lovestruck gaze of Lola, a rebellious graffiti artist.
Following their eyes locking on each other at an open-air market, eyes, a new love unleashes. But as their relationship unfolds, Carmen and Lola will have to battle against a community determined to tear them apart with its strict traditions.
Carmen and Lola screens at Palace James Street on Sunday, April 28 and Wednesday, May 1; and also at Palace Barracks on Sunday, May 5 and Tuesday, May 14.
Tremors
Also screening at Cine Latino is Guatemalan writer-director Jayro Bustamante’s coming-out drama Tremors.
Upper-class fortysomething Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager) is married to the beautiful Isa (Diane Bathen) and father of two young children. But Pablo is ready to reveal a long-held secret: he is in love with another man.
The Spanish Film Festival will come to Palace James Street and Palace Barracks from April 24 to May 15.
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