Think of Malaga as a little Cannes

The Malaga Film Festival, or as it's known here the Festival de Málaga, is now in its 27th year and seems a big deal in this exquisite midsize city in southwestern Spain (pop. half a million) and Picasso's birthplace. Now in its 27th year it has the flavor of a mini Cannes, with a huge red carpet rolled out all the way along a central promenade, a grand entrance way, and packed streets with people behind festival barricades around the central cinema, Teatro Cervantes in Malaga’s Casco Antiguo (old town). It ran 11 days in early March and I was happy to catch at least three of the flicks. The festival is a toast to Spanish cinema and so many of the films, especially those made in Spain itself, don't have English subtitles. I of course opted for the few that did, and they were all North American. The first was by veteran Spanish and internationally-acclaimed filmmaker Isabel Coixet's and her Things I Never Told You, part of a retrospective of her work. She attended the screening and it was a kick to see the Spanish paparazzi (or whatever the Spanish term is) out in force to snap pix of the director during her introduction. The 1994 release stars then popular actress Lili Taylor along with Andrew McCarthy and Seymour Cassel. This thoroughly American film, in English and shot in rural Oregon, is about a displaced young woman (Taylor) at wit's end after being dumped long distance by her boyfriend. It was fun to see Taylor again after all these years, whose demeanor was split between subtle sarcasm and calm anger in an obvious character study of the whims of anomie. The second film was Lumbrendream (Firedream) by José Pablo Escamilla of Mexico. Dark both figuratively and literally, this film about the trap of young people with no futures working in the fast food industry, was well acted. But its characters' angst had a repetitive element and the picture, shot in gloomy and tight indoor surroundings, had a claustrophobic quality. Yes, I looked at my watch several times! The third film was, from Cuba, The Wild Woman by Alan Gonzalez. Here we had at least the semblance of a plot and tension, which the last film lacked. Lola Amores as Youlanda, caught in a cycle of violence and on the run, is trying to find her son in the backstreets of Havana's barrio. (The flick had its world premiere last Sept. in Toronto.)....The festival’s central theatre, Cervantes - and a stone's throw from Picasso's childhood home - is a beautifully intimate opera house style historic venue. The Festival de Málaga may not have been Cannes but it had a similar atmosphere on a smaller scale, and, alas,  is located on the Mediterranean to boot.