Cria cuervos (1976)
Australian Premiere - 2K Restoration
Grand Prix, Cannes Film Festival, 1976
“Still as moving and compelling as when it was made, Cría cuervos seems now not diminished but enhanced by its growing distance in time, benefiting from a retrospective perspective that, appropriately enough, is subtly explored within the film itself.” – Adrian Martin
Carlos Saura became Spain’s most prominent filmmaker from his debut feature Los Golfos (1960). His breakthrough into international art house prominence came with Cría cuervos, a compelling, enigmatic, Bergmanesque exploration of childhood fantasies, in 1976. Shot in the summer of 1975, as Spanish dictator Francisco Franco lay dying, it premiered forty years after the civil war began. Saura could thus hardly have chosen a more momentous time for his meditation on history and memory.
Set almost entirely in a large, gloomy house walled up against the chaotic life of Madrid outside, Cría cuervos tells the story of eight-year-old Ana, played by Ana Torrent, previously seen in Víctor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (1973). The historical and social references in the film are inextricable from the psychic structures it explores.
Introduced by Geoff Gardner at Ritz Cinemas and by Will Cox at Lido Cinemas.
Rating
M
Duration
107 min
Country
Spain
Language
Spanish (English subtitles)
Cast
Geraldine Chaplin, Ana Torrent, Mónica Randall, Héctor Alterio
Director
Carlos Saura
