We're just a week away from the 2024 edition of Spanish Cinema Now and AFI Silver Associate Film Programmer Josh Gardner, who has been involved with AFI since interning for Silverdocs in 2005, guides us through the history of this annual event and shares his favorite picks from this year's lineup.
 
Spanish Cinema Now runs from May 31–June 6. Tickets are now on sale.
 
With their bold, emotional storytelling and boundary-pushing genre films, Spanish movies for some of my favorites. As a programmer at the Silver, my love and appreciation for their cinema has only grown, dating all the way back to first partnering with the Embassy of Spain in 2011 on Good Morning Freedom! Spanish Cinema After Franco. Ever since, we've collaborated on many editions of our AFI European Union Film Showcase and AFI Latin American Film Festival to bring countless Spanish films to our screens, host exciting new filmmaking talent and toast alongside our audiences with many glasses of rioja. Seven years ago, we expanded our partnership and founded Spanish Cinema Now, an annual festival of outstanding movies that reflect the breadth of styles and talents at work in Spain today.
 
This year's edition reflects the diversity of a booming Spanish film industry, featuring festival favorites, Goya Award winners and crowd-pleasing comedies. Some of my top choices from the lineup include:
 
SATURN RETURN
Isaki Lacuesta is one of the most acclaimed voices in Spanish cinema, having twice won the most prestigious festival award in Spain — San Sebastian's Golden Seashell — with THE DOUBLE STEPS (2011) and BETWEEN TWO WATERS (2018). His new film is a freewheeling, dreamlike semi-portrait of the '90s indie rock legends Los Planetas. SATURN RETURN won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing at this year's Malaga Film Festival, making the rollicking tale of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll the buzziest Spanish film of the year so far and the perfect Opening Night selection.
 
UN AMOR
This adaptation of Sara Mesa's blockbuster book features a blistering central performance by SCN favorite Laia Costa (LULLABY) as a woman free-falling into a scorching love affair. Directed by Spanish auteur Isabel Coixet (who took a detour into English-language cinema with LEARNING TO DRIVE and THE BOOKSHOP), the complex, award-winning drama UN AMOR boldly examines female desire.
 
FOREMOST BY NIGHT
If you're looking to make a discovery, take a chance on FOREMOST BY NIGHT, a real gem in this year's lineup. After debuting at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, it quietly had a whirlwind festival run, culminating at New Directors/New Films this past April. Pedro Almodóvar regular Lola Dueñas and Ana Torrent (having a big year after reuniting with her THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE director Víctor Erice on CLOSE YOUR EYES) star as mirror-imaged mothers plotting a revenge heist alongside their 18-year-old son. With style to spare, this noir-inflected family drama–cum–thriller marks the arrival of a major new voice in Spanish cinema: artist and curator Víctor Iriarte, who makes his narrative feature debut here.