LUIS GARCÍA BERLANGA RETROSPECTIVE

Luis García Berlanga (Valencia, 1921 - Madrid, 2010) is one of the most important figures in modern Spanish cinema and one of the filmmakers who most uncompromisingly portrayed the asphyxiating reality of the Franco regime and its lingering metastases in contemporary Spain. Beginning in 1951 with Esa Pareja Feliz and continuing until 2002, when he completed his last film, the short El sueño de la maestra, Berlanga’s work mercilessly reflects the evolution of Spanish society throughout the second half of the 20th century. From repressive authoritarianism to democracy, from the Civil War to the pact of oblivion, from the tacit silence with which the political elites tried to avoid reopening old wounds to the country’s determination to confront its historical memory, from folkloric provincialism – rooted in cultural stereotypes – to the supposed cosmopolitanism of a society bound by rigid social conventions and false moral standards, few aspects of Spanish life have escaped the director’s derisive impulse. In his films, using different strategies to reconcile the tragic with the comic, all sectors of society – politicians, priests, bourgeoisie, bureaucrats, peasants, men and women, rich and poor… – are subtly represented here with the same satirical flair, a trait he also shares with Manoel de Oliveira. The irreverence with which Berlanga portrayed the contradictions of the democratic transition has left its descendants in a whole new generation of filmmakers – from José Luis García Sánchez to Pedro Almodóvar, from Álex de la Iglesia to José Luis Borau – who, in different ways, have brought his critical wit to the present day.

In this first major Berlanga retrospective in Porto, we will have the opportunity to explore some of the director’s most important films, along with the recurring themes that define them, making his work a privileged observatory of our time.