In the long history of Spanish cinema, Spain has produced a wealth of exciting and distinctive filmmakers and films. Though the road was been laden with obstacles historically, filmmaking has continued to thrive in Spain. Yet, only 10% to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films.
The great filmmaker Luis Buñuel been one of the few who has achieved universal recognition, but Spanish cinema has seen some sporadic international success over the years with other film directors like Segundo de Chomón, Florián Rey, Pedro Almodóvar and Alejandro Amenábar.
The first Spanish film exhibition took place in Barcelona in 1895 and became the center of the nation’s film industry and continued to maintain its stronghold on movie production until gradually Madrid took over in leading the Spanish movie production. Today budding actors and actresses move to Barcelona and Madrid in hopes of making their lifelong dream of being in movies come true.
With the end of the Franco era, censorship was greatly loosened. Filmmakers were once again free to make a film in the language of their choice and topic of choice. Thus, a whole new genre of directors began creating films of a controversial nature, attempting to revise the country’s blemished history and challenge traditional ideas of filmmaking.
American and foreign movies also influenced Spanish movies and themes of gender and sexuality began to appear on screen. For cinema-goers outside of Spain, it has often been the sexually-charged and colorful nature of many contemporary Spanish films, which has made them popular world-wide and led directors and stars such as Almodóvar, Banderas and Penélope Cruz to be welcomed by Hollywood.
The Festival de Cine de Sitges, now known as the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Cataluña (International Film Festival of Catalonia), was started in 1967. It is considered one of the best cinematographic contests in Europe and is attended by famous international directors and actors.
Spaniards love to go to the movies and it is still the number one “date night” activity. Most small towns have movie theaters, but many do not. However, with the boom of large shopping malls cropping up, multi-cinemas with hi-fi sound and picture are usually close by. Most American films are dubbed into Spanish and only in major cities or highly tourisy areas will you find theaters with English language movies.
Though Spain may not have a worldwide reputation for making great films, don’t let this fool you. There are numerous fantastic Spanish films currently and from the past that have contributed and changed movie-making history such as “Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie” by Luis Buñuel and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down” by Pedro Almodóvar.
