By Dr. Pablo Rubio Gijón

Most students are well acquainted with popular crime drama series Money Heist (Spanish: La casa de papel) and Narcos. Many can even sing snippets of reggaeton songs in perfect Spanish. Others regularly follow, or know people who do, Latin American telenovelas (soap operas). It is obvious that Spanish, a tongue spoken in 21 countries across four continents, is becoming popular in Kenya. However, what Kenyan students might not be so well aware of is the richness and diversity of the motion picture industry in Spanish. Countries so far apart as Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Spain, Colombia or Cuba, just to name a few, have recently yielded astonishingly well-made films. Some of those movies have been awarded numerous international prizes, even the Academy Awards. Unfortunately, Kenyan audiences have little or no access to them.

To this end, we have selected five recent Spanish language films across various genres to highlight the diversity of the stories told and the fact that Spanish language films are as entertaining as any others.

We will screen movies weekly every Wednesday at the Library Conference Room at 3:30 pm until March 4, 2020. The first screening was Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales (2014), an Argentine dark comedy compilation movie composed of six standalone shorts. Below is the schedule for the rest of the screenings:

12 February - The Noble Family (Directed by Gary Alazraki, Mexico, 2013)

19 February - Habanastation (Directed by Ian Padrón, Cuba, 2011)

26 February - The Invisible Guest (Directed by Oriol Paulo, Spain, 2016)

4 March - The Milk of Sorrow (Directed by Claudia Llosa, Peru, 2009)

Enjoy!