TWU Spanish Film Festival

March 24-30, 2025

The 2025 Spanish Film Festival will take place March 24-30.

The festival will feature five films, one shown on March 25 at 4 p.m. in Administrative and Conference Tower room 301 and four streamed online.

The festival is organized by the Department of Language, Culture and Gender Studies and made possible in part by a Spanish Film Club grant from Pragda, a New York-based distributor. Supported by the Spanish government, the grant covers a substantial portion of the licenses for five selected films and facilitates the streaming of the event.

Schedule

March 25, 4 p.m., in ACT 301

• Ixcanul 

March 24-30, streaming online

• Alegria
• 3 Beauties
• A Moonless Night
• Babygirl

Streaming information

Click here to stream the online films (valid March 24-30).
Username: SFC@TexasWomansUniversity
Password: TexasWomansUniSFC2025!

Alegria

Violeta Salama (Spain, 2021) 119 min.

This film conveys a story of reconciliation told by a Jewish woman, a Muslim and a Christian living in Morocco. It is shaped entirely by women – from the director and screenwriters to the producer. A layered, heartfelt family drama about women breaking free from patriarchal tradition in a contemporary Jewish diasporic community.

Alegría’s life takes a profound shift upon discovering that her orthodox Jewish brother insists on holding his daughter’s wedding in Melilla. Guided by Dunia, her Arab housekeeper, and Marian, her Christian confidante, Alegría embarks on a journey to connect with her roots while assisting her niece, Yael, in navigating womanhood within a highly conservative male-dominated environment.

Renowned Mexican actress Cecilia Suárez (The House of Flowers, 3 Caminos) takes the lead, infusing the film with her charisma and impeccable comedic timing, amidst a backdrop of familial tumult and conflicting traditions. The film sensitively depicts her coming to terms with her roots and the cultural past she has rejected. She may not want these traditions for herself, but she comes to understand the value they have in her community.

Alegría is also about Melilla, an autonomous, multicultural Spanish city on Africa’s north coast, where Jews, Muslims, and Christians mix and mingle and come together to make the wedding happen. It is a gorgeous evocation of a fascinating and beautiful corner of the world not often seen on-screen.

3 Beauties

Carlos Caridad Montero (Venezuela, 2014) 97 min.

From the country that boasts over 600 beauty pageants each year comes 3 Beauties, a scathing satire of Venezuela’s fixation with beauty and its relation to social status. Perla is the single mother of two competitive daughters, products of her own unfulfilled childhood obsession to become a beauty queen, and a son who she completely ignores. As the years pass, Perla’s unlimited efforts to achieve her dream through her two princesses transforms everyone’s lives into a nightmare. Toddlers & Tiaras meets Pedro Almodóvar in this frantic, devious comedy.

A Moonless Night

Germán Tejeira (Argentina, Uruguay, 2015) 81 min.

Uruguay’s official entry to the Academy Awards for best foreign language film. Up-and-coming Uruguayan director Germán Tejeira creates a moving, poignant, witty character study in his first feature film.

On New Year’s Eve, three lonely characters travel to a small town in the Uruguayan countryside. Cesar, a divorced man, arrives at the town, where he will have dinner with his ex-wife’s new family in an attempt to win back his daughter’s love. Antonio, a small-time magician, is trying to get to the town to perform his routine at the community center, but his car breaks down. Stranded in the middle of the deserted road, he meets Laura, a woman working at the toll station. Miguel, a performer, prepares to sing at the community center’s New Year’s Eve party. By following their paths to the town, the characters have a chance to change their destinies.

Ixcanul

Jayro Bustamante (France, Guatemala, 2015) 62 min.

The debut of Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante is a mesmerizing fusion of fact and fable, a dreamlike depiction of the daily lives of Kaqchikel speaking Mayans on a coffee plantation at the base of an active volcano. Immersing us in its characters’ customs and beliefs, Ixcanul chronicles with unblinking realism, a disappearing tradition and a disappearing people.

Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation in the foothills of an active volcano in Guatemala. An arranged marriage awaits her: her parents have promised her to Ignacio, the plantation overseer. But Maria doesn’t sit back and accept her destiny.

Pepe, a young coffee cutter who plans to migrate to the United States, becomes her possible way out. Maria seduces Pepe in order to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe takes off, leaving her pregnant, alone and in disgrace. There’s no time to lose for Maria’s mother, who thinks abortion is the only solution. Yet despite her mother’s ancestral knowledge, the baby remains, destined to live.

But destiny has more in store for Maria: a snakebite forces them to leave immediately in search of a hospital. The modern world Maria has so dreamt about will save her life, but at what price…

Babygirl

Laura Amelia Guzmán (Dominican Republic, 2023) 92 min.

A jewel of the New Wave of Dominican cinema. It presents inverts the ‘maid as a second mother’ narrative to explore issues of class and race in an innovative way. And because it is a beautiful story with compelling characters that will make you believe in humanity again and will stay with you for days and months!

Set in an upper-class neighborhood of the Dominican Republic, Babygirl is an unsettling portrait of a middle-aged woman, Dominique, and her relations with family, servants and entourage.

From the first scene, the film astutely depicts her privilege and buried longings. As a woman whose identity is deeply attached to her role, Dominique finds herself alone after the departure of her children. One day, the maid brings home her granddaughter and, shortly after, inexplicably disappears. The little girl re-awakens Dominique’s maternal instinct – but neither her relatives nor her friends seem to think it a good decision to keep her.

With neat precision and calculated detachment, Babygirl  paints a society of strong racial and class differences. Appearances and disappearances are shrouded in mystery; hints at corporate corruption are left unresolved; and nods to Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman (2008) can be felt.