On 7 June, the Filmadrid International Film Festival, headed up by Nuria Cubas and Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, will kick off its fourth edition, set to unspool in the Spanish capital until Saturday 16 June. With a spirit that is just as daring, ground-breaking and alternative as it was at its inception, the programme continues to put its faith in films that are not usually shown in mainstream Spanish cinemas, and indeed, some will never get a release. Said movies can be seen chiefly in the Cineteca, Spanish Film Library, Casa Encendida, Sala Equis, Círculo de Bellas Artes and Complutense University.

Proof of this can be found in some of the titles on offer in the official competitive section, such as Meteors [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Gürcan Keltek
scheda film] (Turkey/Netherlands) by documentarian Gürcan Keltek; the French efforts Also Known as Jihadi [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Eric Baudelaire and The Wild Boys [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bertrand Mandico
scheda film], a particularly transgressive film helmed by Bertrand Mandico; Germany’s Drift [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Helena Wittmann e Theresa …
scheda film] by Helena Wittmann; the French-Italian production They Still Burn [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], directed by Felice D’Agostino and Arturo Lavorato; Spain’s Thirty Souls [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Diana Toucedo
scheda film] by Diana Toucedo; and the experimental Portuguese flick Galileo’s Thermometer [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Teresa Villaverde.

Standing out in the similarly competitive Vanguardias section is the world premiere of the Spanish-Chilean co-production Can Limbo by Martín Baus, the Spanish premiere of the Russian movie Nazidanie by Boris Yukhananov and Aleksandr Shein, and a screening of the Austrian film What I Remember by Antoinette Zwirchmayr. One and the same filmmaker will have the honour of both opening and closing the gathering: South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo, who will get things under way with The Day After and will bring the festival to a close with Claire’s Camera [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], starring the great French actress Isabelle Huppert.

Of note among the activities scheduled to take place at Filmadrid 2018 is the Focus dedicated to Italy’s Tonino de Bernardi, with the Spanish premieres of a clutch of his movies, such as Médée Miracle [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (2007), Iphigenia in Aulis [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (2018) and Appassionate (1999); another devoted to Israel’s Raquel Chalfi (on show, among her other works, will be The Hidden Fountain – The World of Miriam Chalfi); and yet another to the USA’s Khalik Allah. Worth highlighting among the special screenings are a batch of European features, such as the medieval road movie Little Crusader [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Václav Kadrnka
scheda film] (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Italy) by Václav Kadrnka, and Eugène Green’s Waiting for the Barbarians [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which was triumphant at the most recent Gijón Film Festival; in addition, Green will lead a workshop entitled “Actors in Cinema” during the festival.

The entire programme and schedule of activities for Filmadrid 2018 can be found here.