Cult Spanish film director to visit St Andrews

One of the most important filmmakers to emerge in Spain in the 1990s will arrive in Scotland next week to attend a special screening arranged by the University of St Andrews and the Consulate of Spain in Edinburgh.

Cult director Alex de la Iglesia will attend a screening of his hit comedy ‘La Comunidad’ (‘Common Wealth’) in St Andrews, arranged by the University’s Centre for Film Studies and Spanish Department.

The free public screening, sponsored by the Consulate of Spain in Edinburgh, will be held next Monday (30th April) at the NPH Cinema in St Andrews. The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with the filmmaker conducted by Dr Belén Vidal (Centre for Film Studies).

The special event will be preceded by a free public screening of de la Iglesia’s 2004 film, ‘Ferpect Crime’ tomorrow (Friday 27th April) at the University. ‘Ferpect Crime’ is a satire about murder and sexual jealousy set in a department store. Born in Bilbao in 1965, de la Iglesia gained cult status with the ‘The Day of the Beast’ (1995), and his reputation was further consolidated by the success of ‘La Comunidad’ (2000), an action comedy about greed and neighbourly relations. ‘La Comunidad’ is the story of a cunning estate agent and a residents’ association in a Madrid tenement building who will go to extreme lengths to secure a fortune hidden in one of the flats. With its clever mix of black comedy and Hitchcockian suspense, the film was a box office hit in Spain and garnered prizes in film festivals around the world.

Dr Vidal said, “With these and other films De la Iglesia has established himself as one of the most inventive directors in Spain, equally at ease with long- established traditions in Spanish comedy and the codes of contemporary Hollywood genre cinema. Coated in a sophisticated visual style along with a taste for the quirky and the bizarre, his films are not only bold entertainment but they offer a critique of the obsession with wealth, fame and consumer goods in contemporary society. We are delighted to have him here in St Andrews for this special event.”

De la Iglesia has just wrapped up the shoot of his eighth film, the international production ‘The Oxford Murders’, a thriller starring John Hurt and Elijah Wood about a professor and a Mathematics student combining forces to solve a series of crimes.

‘La Comunidad’ will be shown at the NPH, North Street, St Andrews, on Monday 30 April at 5.35pm. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the Director. ‘Ferpect Crime’ will be shown tomorrow (Friday 27 April) in School III, St Salvator’s Quadrangle, St Andrews, at 4.15pm.