Hollywood rueda en España (1955-1980) (2018)

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

The Builders of the Alhambra

Kingdom of Granada, al-Andalus, 14th century. After recognizing that his land, always under siege, is hopelessly doomed to be conquered, Sultan Yusuf I undertakes the construction of a magnificent fortress with the purpose of turning it into the landmark of his civilization and his history, a glorious monument that will survive the oblivion of the coming centuries: the Alhambra.

Tippi Hedren: The Birds and Other Wild Animals

Tippi Hedren, the unforgettable actress who starred in The Birds (1963), made in her memoirs a relentless portrait of its director, the genius British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980), the same one who, despite his disturbing personality and questionable working methods, made her a Hollywood star. From Minnesota to Hollywood, the true story of a unique performer and a free woman.

The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film

Fifty years after its release, the special effects makeup team behind Planet of the Apes reflect on making the iconic film.

The Demise of ETA

The chronicle of the process, ten long years, that led to the end of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), a Basque terrorist gang that perpetrated robberies, kidnappings and murders in Spain and the French Basque Country for more than fifty years. Almost 1,000 people died, but others are still alive to tell the story of how the nightmare finally ended.

[REC]: Horror Without Pause

The horror film [REC] — directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, and released in 2007 — was an unprecedented triumph for Spanish fantasy cinema. Fifteen years later, those responsible for the creation and worldwide success of this cinematic milestone decode its keys and resurrect the myth.

The Concavenator Valley

Three researchers work on a paleontological project focusing on two dinosaurs: one fictional, the one created by special effects genius Ray Harryhausen for the film The Valley of Gwangi (1969); the other real, the Concavenator corcovatus, whose remains were discovered in 2003 at the Las Hoyas site, in the province of Cuenca (Spain), very close to where the filming took place.

Las cinéphilas

Six elderly retired women, two from Buenos Aires, Argentina; two from Montevideo, Uruguay; and two from Madrid, Spain, have something in common, despite their different interests and lives: they go to the movies almost every day.

Rioja: The Land of a Thousand Wines

By telling the human stories behind the entire value chain that gives life to the Spanish wine with the greatest international projection, ‘Rioja, Land of the Thousand Wines’ portrays a currently blooming wine region underpinned by the talent and the work of the new generations of winemakers that operate side by side with the region’s historic wineries. The film puts the focus on the match between territory and product, wisdom and tradition, and lays a bridge between the origins and the future of Rioja. An immersion into a fascinating world that, through captivating cinematography and careful editing, attempts to find the keys to understanding what Rioja wine is and what makes it so special.

Històries de Bruguera

The history of Bruguera, the most important comic publisher in Spain between the 1940s and the 1980s. How the characters created by great writers and pencilers became Spanish archetypes and how their strips persist nowadays as a portrait of Spain and its people. The daily life of the creators and the founding family, the Brugueras. The world in which hundreds of vivid colorful paper beings lived and still live, in the memory of millions, in the smile of everyone.

We Were Once Kids

In the early nineties, before the massive gentrification of many of New York's then slums, several young people from very disparate backgrounds left their broken homes and ventured onto the brutal streets of the city. United by their love of skateboarding, they formed a family and built a unique lifestyle that eventually inspired Kids, a groundbreaking and outrageous film directed by photographer Larry Clark and released in 1995.

The Lot of Fun: Hollywood’s Fun Factory

A documentary about film producer Hal Roach.

Stories of Our Cinema

In Spain, on May 11, 1896, at the Price circus, the first moving images ever shown in the country are projected. From that event, the Spanish actor Antonio Resines intends to compile a series of anecdotes to shape the amazing history of Spanish cinema, holding several conversations with prominent figures of the Spanish film industry.

Gesto

The history of the citizens' movement that for thirty years worked hard to overcome fear, fight hatred and eradicate the violence exercised by the savage terrorist gang ETA, both in the Basque Country and in the rest of Spain.

Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

Stunts: A Taste for Risk

The amazing story of stunts, men and women who risk their lives every day on set to get the perfect action scene.

The One, the Only, the Real Tarzan

The glorious and tragic story of American athlete and actor Johnny Weissmuller (1904-84), Olympic swimmer, water polo player and the only true Tarzan, an archetypal character and myth of cinema, that of the original Hollywood blockbusters (1932-48).

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

The March on Rome

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.

The Green Fog

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Coup 53

Tehran, Iran, August 19, 1953. A group of Iranian conspirators who, with the approval of the deposed tyrant Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, have conspired with agents of the British MI6 and the US CIA, manage to put an end to the democratic government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh, a dramatic event that will begin the tragic era of coups d'état that, orchestrated by the CIA, will take place, over the following decades, in dozens of countries around the world.

The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone

An attempt to create a bridge between the different political positions that coexist, sometimes violently, in the Basque Country, in northern Spain.

Becoming Marilyn

The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.

La Cicciolina: Godmother of Scandal

The personal and professional story of Ilona Staller, known as Cicciolina, is probably unique: she left communist Hungary and moved to Italy, where she found a fertile environment for a life dedicated to scandal.

Heirs of the Beast

The story of the making and subsequent success of The Day of the Beast, the Spanish cult film directed by Álex de la Iglesia and released in 1995.

Locations: Looking for Rusty James

A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.

Aquí y allí: journal d'une exilée

While cleaning the apartment of Lucía, her deceased grandmother, Anna finds a notebook where she discovers the story of a secretly kept love, lived during the turbulent years of the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War.

The Critic

A portrait of film critic Carlos Boyero, one of the most followed and feared figures in Spanish cinema, surrounded by controversy and both love and hate.

Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace

Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.

Wild Session

A walk through the golden age of Spanish exploitation cinema, from the sixties to the eighties; a low-budget cinema and great popular acceptance that exploited cinematographic fashions: westerns, horror movies, erotic comedies and thrillers about petty criminals.

Les dents de la mer: Un succès monstre

In the summer of 1975, the young director Steven Spielberg set new standards for cinema worldwide with an oversized shark bite, a plastic shark fin and an unmistakable two-note main theme composed by John Williams. With the horror from the deep, a man-eating, gigantic great white shark, the film of the same name became a similarly traumatic reference as Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho": it triggered lasting primal fears across generations. On the beaches of the world, there was clearly a "before" and an "after". Steven Spielberg, who was only 28 at the time, not only set new standards for the thriller genre, but also hid his biting criticism of US capitalism in the 1970s behind it.

La Antorcha de los Éxitos: Cifesa (1932-1961)

The amazing story of Cifesa, a mythical film production company founded in Valencia by the Casanova family that managed to dominate the box office during the turbulent times of the Second Spanish Republic, the carnage of the Civil War and the hardships of the long post-war period and Franco's dictatorship — and survive until the sixties, when Spain was timidly beginning to change.

Big Big Big

A couple decides to watch Big, a successful film released in 1988, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Penny Marshall, not once, but thirty times, sometimes accompanied by family and friends who come to their home to watch and discuss it.

Lost in La Mancha

Fulton and Pepe's 2000 documentary captures Terry Gilliam's attempt to get The Man Who Killed Don Quixote off the ground. Back injuries, freakish storms, and more zoom in to sabotage the project.

The Painting

For three and a half centuries, from the same day that Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) applied his last brushstroke to the canvas, the enigma of “Las meninas, o La familia de Felipe IV” (1656) has not been deciphered. The secret story of a painting unveiled as if it was the resolution of a perfect crime.

The Forbidden Reel

According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.

Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field: The Documentary

Tucumán, Argentina, 1965. Three years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released, director Ofelio Linares Montt shot Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field, which turned out to be both a horror film and a political statement. It was a success in the US, but could not be shown in Argentina due to Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship, and was eventually lost. Writer and researcher Luciano Saracino embarks on the search for the origins of this cursed work.

Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman

The history of the comic book superhero, Superman, in his various media incarnations.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a humane and groundbreaking masterpiece and the flawed but gifted people who made it. It is about a troubled era of cultural ferment, social and political change, about broken dreams and strivers, then and now. It is about an era that made a movie and a movie that made an era.