The Spanish Film Club’s annual movie series is under way once again. The series presents movies featuring a variety of Hispanic cultures produced in countries all over the world. The club’s director, Dr. David Zuwiyya, a Spanish professor in the Foreign Language Department for twenty years, chooses the selections based on extensive research.
He initially uses a third party service, Pragda.com, to purchase the films. Pragda is an educational film distributor out of Brooklyn, that specializes in assisting universities and public exhibitions find educational films to show to public audiences. The website offers grants to universities, which Dr. Zuwiyya applies for annually. Once Dr. Zuwiyya receives the grant, the selection process begins. The professor begins looking at movies with the mindset of “what’s going on in the Hispanic world right now?” to make selections from films that have been produced within the last two years. Dr. Zuwiyya watches the trailers and reads each movie description, only looking at films that pique his interest. “I also look at what festival it’s been shown in, because they [pragda.com] give you information about what festivals each of the films were presented at and if they won any awards. That allows me to have a better idea of whether there is something worthwhile in the film” he says.
The five films in this year’s series are unlike traditional movies found in American theaters. “None of these films are like Hollywood films… The message is delivered in a completely different way and sometimes I think it has a lot more impact”. Dr. Zuwiyya notes that these films don’t use stereotypical tropes to get the audience’s attention: there is often no nudity, nor many action scenes; rather, it is up to each individual director to decide how the message of the movie will come across.
All of the films shown are in Spanish, with English subtitles at the bottom of the screen. And for the last four years, the Jule Collins Museum has been the been venue site for the series. Dr. Zuwiyya set up the ideal location the very first year the series began. He believes it is a wonderful location for the event due to it being “an actual theater and not a classroom... They have a big screen and a great sound system”.
All of the Spanish films shown this year are free and open to the public as well as University students. Typically, the series sees an average attendance of 10-75 people attend their showings, so be sure to come a few minutes early to get a good seat.
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