On 3 September 2016, Professor Núria Triana Toribio, Professor of Hispanic Studies in the Department of Modern Languages, will be presenting at the forthcoming British Film Institute (BFI) study day,’The Almodóvar Connection: Spanish Cinema, History and Memory’.

Pedro Almodóvar is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, and producer, who achieved international recognition for such films as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), All About My Mother (1999) and Volver (2006). The BFI event is a study day that aims to use Almodóvar’s work as a starting point to unravel ideas about Spanish cinema, cinephilia, history, and memory. It forms part of retrospective season, ‘Almodóvar at BFI Southbank’, in anticipation of the release of his new film Julieta (2016).

Núria will be giving a presentation entitled ‘Pedro Almodóvar and the Legend of the Movida’. She will explore the singularity of Almodóvar’s cinema by tracing its roots to a Spanish Punk scene whose ferment generated photographers, artists, and musicians especially, but only one filmmaker who survived. It will consider how those films and their legacy shape contemporary memories of that unique moment in Spanish history. The talk will focus on Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Average Girls (1980) and Labyrinth of Passions (1982), those sunny chronicles of the Spanish Punk moment, in contrast with the darker visions of Arrebato (1980), the film from that period chosen by Almodóvar himself for the BFI.

The BFI is a London-based charitable organisation, established by Royal Charter to promote and preserve film and television. The event will be held at the BFI Southbank, a four-screen venue in London.

Sent in by: Kate Buchan