EL AÑO DE LA PLAGA (2018)

Spain-Mexico-Belgium. Direction: C. Martín Ferrera. Production: David Matamoros, Antonia Nava, Ángeles Hernández, Peter Rogiers, Samantha Guillén, Adrián Bazán / Zentropa Spain, Neo Art Producciones, Cinema 226, De Hofleveranciers. Screenplay: Marc Pastor, Miguel Ibáñez Monroy, Ángeles Hernández, David Matamoros. Photography: Miguel Prohens. Music: Poncho Toledo. Edition: Ana Charte Isa, Elena Ruiz. Cast: Iván Massagué, Ana Serradilla, Miriam Giovanelli, Canco Rodríguez, Héctor Jiménez. Running time: 96 min

LANGUAGE: Spanish

From the author of the devastating Zulo (2005) and the intense Suspicious Minds (2010), comes the only movie of the whole Festival which starts, deliberately, with an enormous spoiler before proceeding to pull, pull and pull upwards, because yet again we’re going to be colonised by invading alien (or something like that) body snatchers. In other words, we relive that day of the triffids and are inconvenienced once again by problems with seeds falling from outer space. This time they don’t seem to be beans, but a very pretty, rancid-smelling plant, the eucalyptus. It’s sold in all of the flower shops of Catalonia, the Catalonia of REC (2007), yep. It’s a percussive and sometimes sentimental co-production between three mad countries: Spain, Mexico and Belgium, and in it, there’s even Brays Efe. Yes, him.