The Spanish Film Festival really means not just Spain but the Hispanophone world, where Spanish is spoken, and in all there’ll be a selection of 30 films from Spain and Latin America, writes HELEN MUSA.

The CEO of Palace Cinemas and curator of the coming Spanish Film Festival, Benjamin Zeccola, has just emerged from an intense 14 days viewing (8am to midnight) and buying films at the Cannes Film Festival.

He’s there as part of an annual buying trip, where he accesses films for the Scandinavian, Spanish and Italian film festivals, and for general distribution in Australia.

His curating work is long behind him for this year’s Spanish Film Festival, but it’s still very much in his mind, since he’s been buying for the next one. 

“I try to pick a mood and set a note,” he says.

“Opening night means a fun thing,” he says, so this year they’ll kick off with an opening night comedy Samana Sunrise, which follows two Spanish couples celebrating their 20-year friendship with a trip to a beachside resort in the Dominican Republic, where the past surfaces to bite them.

When he then tells me that closing night will feature a remastering of the 2000 Argentine heist crime drama hit, Nine Queens, it becomes obvious that his festival really means not just Spain but the Hispanophone world, where Spanish is spoken, and in all there’ll be a selection of 30 films from Spain and Latin America. 

Zeccola himself speaks a bit of French, some Italian and better Spanish and says: “It’s one of the most successful languages in the world, it’s not hard to learn either and it sounds beautiful – I think it’s the most fun to speak.”

Spanish diaspora movies in this year’s line-up includes Mexican/US co-production Las Tres Sisters, an adventure comedy about three Mexican-American sisters who embark on an adventure to follow in the footsteps of their grandmother.

From Peru comes Through Rocks And Clouds, where an eight-year-old alpaca herder excitedly follows Peru’s World Cup chances, even as a mining company threatens his village and way of life in the remote Andes. 

Uruguayan drama Milonga focuses on a woman who hopes to free herself from her past when she meets a man with whom she re-discovers her passion for tango, while the quirky thriller from Buenos Aires, El Jockey, tells the story of a jockey’s self-destructive behaviour which begins to outshine his talent.

Spain is still at the heart of the event, and the centrepiece of the festival is EL 47, which recently won five Goya Awards including the Best Film. Inspired by a true story, it’s a biographical drama that follows bus driver Manolo Vital in an act of peaceful dissidence that transformed modern Barcelona in the 1970s.

In marked contrast is the real-life drama I am Nevenka, inspired by the true case of Nevenka Fernández, a young woman in 1990s Spain who, ahead of her time, reported harassment by her employer.

The dramatic comedy Summer In December sees four generations of women gathering in Madrid for a family reunion, while the equally dramatic thriller Electrophilia looks at a woman changed after being struck by lightning.

Most exciting of all will be The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés, winner of the Best Documentary and Best Original Song at this year’s Goya Awards, which features spectacular set pieces of flamenco.

The 2025 Spanish Film Festival, Palace Electric Cinemas, June 11-July 2.