Synopsis
Ana (Ana Torrent) and her two sisters, who had already lost their mother María (Geraldine Chalin), have recently lost their father, a Spanish soldier, and must now live under the guardianship of their aunt. With Franco’s dictatorship as a backdrop, but also as an allegory in this sad coming-of-age story, Ana suffers under her aunt’s strict discipline while coming to terms with the meaning of death, missing her mother, and the disenchantment with her father figure. Winner of the Cannes Jury Grand Prize in 1976, the film merges lapses of fantasy and temporal displacement: Ana is visited by the living memory of her mother, and an adult Ana, also played by Geraldine Chaplin, intervenes creating a double path between the formative experiences of subjectivity and the gesture of examining them retrospectively. (G.P.)
Director
Carlos Saura
One of the most celebrated and awarded Spanish filmmakers of all time, Carlos Saura (1932-2023) conceived, wrote, and directed more than 40 feature films over 60 years. Between documentary and fiction films, among which musicals and literary adaptations, his work has been particularly sensitive to the psychological and spiritual dimensions of his characters against dictatorial and oppressive political contexts. His films manipulate time and space in an expressive manner. Past, future, fantasy, and memory have free transit in his fictional universe, as we find in "Cría Cuervos" (1976), which together with "The Hunt" (1966), "Peppermint Frappé" (1967), "Cousin Angelica" (1974), and "Tango" (1998) are among the best-known works of his prolific career.
Thursday 16:30 
