Spanish Cinema Day 2022 (on line): Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist)

On October 6th, Instituto Cervantes celebrates the second edition of "Spanish Cinema Day" with the hope that it becomes established as part of our cultural programme. "Spanish Cinema Day" wants to be a collective way of vindicating the weight and importance of our cinema as a cultural heritage, as a generator of a common identity and imaginary, and for this purpose, activities and actions are organized during a day —both in the Spanish territory as well as in the international arena— that make known and celebrate the richness and diversity of our cinematography and vindicate the work of its professionals and its audiences. As part of this festival, we are presenting the Spanish-Italian co-production Death of a Cyclist, written and directed by Juan Antonio Bardem in 1955. This essential filmmaker for understanding the Spanish 20th century makes an intriguing chronicle of the Spanish middle class in this historical film. To do this, he uses the portrait of a couple in love who assume very different positions in the face of the surrounding social atmosphere. 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 resume their love. But now María José is no longer free and their love turns into adultery. [From the Dictionary of Ibero-American Cinema (Madrid, SGAE, 2012, p. 1003), by José Enrique Monterde].