This year’s New Spanish Cinema Opening Night Gala includes delicious tapas, savory Serrano ham, and a glass of wine is also included in your ticket. But the main event is the West Coast premiere of the new epic from Alejandro Amenábar (Open Your Eyes; The Others; The Sea Inside; Agora). The prisoner of the title is none other than Miguel de Cervantes (Julio Peña), later to author Don Quixote. A soldier wounded at the Battle of Lepanto and captured by Ottoman corsairs, Cervantes is held for ransom in Algiers in 1575, eventually falling into the hands of Hasan, the Bajá of Algiers (Italian star Alessandro Borghi). Their relationship is the backbone of this ingenious and fast-moving historical drama, with Cervantes using his wits and imagination to try to engineer an escape.
According to Amenábar, this is “An origin story about the man who invented the modern novel.” But also, “A high adventure, a prison drama and melodrama.” One thing it’s not, is a conventional biopic — little is known about the real Cervantes’ life, and in the spirit of Quixote, the filmmakers show no hesitation to let their imagination fill the void.
Note: the buffet will be served Spanish-style, after the screening
Delightfully subversive.
Olivia Popp, Cineuropa
A fascinating adventure film, about sexual liberation and about the meaning of fiction.
uis Martinez, El Mundo
A handsomely made, compulsively watchable film.
Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
Alejandro Amenábar
Alessandro Borghi, Julio Peña, César Sarachu, Roberto Álamo
Spain/Italy
2025
In Spanish, Arabic and Italian with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Friday January 09
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Alejandro Amenábar, Fernando Bovaira, Simón de Santiago
Screenwriter
Alejandro Amenábar
Cinematography
Alex Catalán
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.