Spanish Cinema Day: Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist)

On October 6th we celebrate the second edition of Spanish Cinema Day (Día del Cine Español), an event that we hope will be consolidated as part of our annual cultural calendar. The #DiaDelCineEspañol wants to be a collective way of vindicating the importance of the Spanish cinema as a cultural heritage, as a generator of a common identity and imaginary, and for this, events and actions are organized during a day - both in the Spanish territory and in the international arena - that celebrates the richness and diversity of our cinematography and highlights the work of its professionals and its audiences.

As part of this festival, we present the Spanish-Italian co-production Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist), written and directed by Juan Antonio Bardem in 1955. A essential filmmaker for understanding the Spanish 20th century, Bardem makes an interesting chronicle of the Spanish middle class in this historical film through the portrait of a couple of lovers who assume very different positions in the face of the social climate that surrounds them.

Starring two stars who had just arrived in Spain in the 1950s, the exiled Alberto Closas and the Italian Lucía Bosé, Death of a Cyclist continues to maintain intact its critical reading and the solvency of the cinema of an author in a state of grace.

Synopsis: Juan and María José, boyfriends in a past before the Spanish Civil War, meet after a few years of separation - now the war is over - and they resume their love. But now María José is no longer free and their love turns into adultery.

[Taken from the Dictionary of Ibero-American Cinema (Madrid, SGAE, 2012, p. 1003), by José Enrique Monterde].