For another year, the La Linterna Mágika film club and the Atalaya Club are organizing the Magic Film Week, which is now in its thirty-fourth edition and will be held from Sunday, August 17th to Friday, August 22nd at the Atalaya-Ateneo de la Villa de Cieza Club.
Summer cinema under the stars returns to the patio of the Atalaya Club, defying uncertainty and resisting a world of tiny screens dominated by digital platforms and subscribers. A cinematic manifesto since 1990, in its 34th edition, denounces the rise of fascism and social and institutional racism and points to the voracious and undisguised capitalist socioeconomic system, which sharpens its weapons with each crisis, as the main cause.
As every year, the film week lineup fuses art and activism. The structural housing crisis, which means hundreds of silent evictions every day, the denial of the right to decent housing, and ultimately, increased social inequality, is part of the protest of the characters who live in the overcrowded building. A community of neighbors makes a desperate plea for the Palestinian people who resist amid bombs and hunger, and condemns the xenophobic violence of the organized far right and its normalization.
This year's program begins on Sunday the 17th with a screening of Charles Chaplin's masterpiece, The Golden Rush. A masterpiece in the history of cinema, restored in 4K on its centenary, Chaplin transforms human suffering, hardship, and loneliness into an odyssey of tenderness and wit. His distinctive, satirical vision of society leads him to dynamite so-called "respectable institutions," always adding a compelling call for love and human brotherhood.
From silent comedy to the Cannes Film Festival award-winning film, Sirât, directed by Oliver Laxe and starring Sergi López, which will be screened on Monday the 18th. A film that moves between a western and a road movie, full of metaphysics and techno, and which reflects the hedonism of the first world through a family trance in the desert. For Tuesday the 19th, Walter Salles' film, I'm Still Here, starring actress Fernanda Torres. A universalizing ode to justice based on the memory of Congressman Marcelo Rubens Paiva, captured by the government of the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1971. As a novelty this year, for Wednesday the 20th, a film suitable for children has been scheduled, Mission Panda in Africa, an adventure film that highlights fraternity between peoples based on an original premise: what are a dragon and a Chinese panda doing in Africa? On Thursday the 21st, the feature film screenings will conclude with humanist cinema, A Portuguese Villa, in which filmmaker Avelina Prat directs María de Medeiros in a fable about borrowed identities, shared silences, and the search for a new home.
As every year, the Magic Film Week schedules an evening where film and music go hand in hand. For this edition, and with the aim of continuing to support local talent, on Friday the 22nd, the Cieza Municipal Music Band will offer a concert with screenings entitled "Film Notes: A Cinematic Journey Through Music."
Film collaborations and the film concert are priced at €5 per session. Season tickets (€15) will also be available at the box office, including four of the five screenings (€15), except for the children's film screening and the Friday concert. All screenings will begin at 9:45 p.m.