Winner of five Goya Awards (Spanish Oscars) including for Best Film, this is an unusual box office smash. It’s the true story of a frustrated bus driver, Manolo Vital (Eduard Fernández), who hijacks his own bus to draw attention to the neglected shantytown on the outskirts of Barcelona where he made his home in the 1950s.
This is very clearly a film about class, provincial (rather than ethnic) prejudices, and the power of collective, community action. As such it makes a fascinating companion piece to Sleepless City, also in our New Spanish Cinema programme. The spirit of Ken Loach is never far away — but with an uplift you rarely find in Loach’s stories.
A splendid film that deals about the neighborhood struggle as an engine of change in the search for the common good.
Blai Morrell, Fotogramas
A great work with a director, Marcel Barrena, who is very clear about what he wants to tell, and an ensemble of actors who make us experience what they represent.
Jordi Mir, El Pais
Great movie, a sincere look at a neighborhood, its people and their struggles.
Tony Vall, Cinemania
Marcel Barrena
Eduard Fernández, Clara Segura, David Verdaguer, Zoe Bonafonte, Salva Reina
Spain
2024
In Spanish with English subtitles
5 Goya Awards including Best Film
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Screenwriter
Marcel Barrena, Alberto Marini
Cinematography
Isaac Vila
Also in This Series
This year’s New Spanish Cinema is packed with an exceptionally strong line-up — award-winning cinema, an Opening Gala featuring tapas and wine, and a flamenco-inspired VIFF Live.
The Blue Star
In crisis, a popular singer quits Spain to backpack in Argentina. There he comes under the spell of a veteran musician, who teaches him the art of chacareras, zambas and vidalas. It's a journey of musical kinship and spiritual reawakening.
Forastera
In this mysterious and subtle coming of age drama, teenager Cata is soaking up the sun, smoking furtive cigarettes, and enjoying a summer break with her grandparents and her younger sis in Mallorca. That is, until Cata's beloved abuela collapses...
Afternoons of Solitude
Pacification director Albert Serra turns his unflinching gaze on the subject of bullfighting, and in particular the famous young matador Andrés Roca Rey. The film challenges us to look its subject square in the eye and draw our own conclusions.
The Executioner
Regularly cited as the greatest Spanish film ever made, Berlanga's masterpiece is a pitch black comedy about an undertaker lined up by the state executioner to marry his beautiful daughter -- but he'll also have to inherit the old man's job.
The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés + Por Derecho (On Their Own Right) Live
Winner of the Goya Award for Best Documentary, this is an exquisite and surprisingly intimate portrait of the brilliant young guitarist Yerai Cortés, preceded by an hour of passionate flamenco music, song and dance performed by Por Derecho.
Saturn Return
This fascinating, highly acclaimed movie is a thinly disguised history of 90s indie rockers Los Planetas, a Granada grunge outfit who cited the Velvet Underground as inspiration. It's one of the best rock movies in years.
8
The always stylish, idiosyncratic Basque auteur Julio Medem is back with one of his most ambitious films (and our closing night gala), a sweeping historical romance in eight chapters, spanning eight decades in Spanish history from the 1930s to the present day.