Spanish Cinema Day: Death of a Cyclist (Online)
On October 6th we celebrate the second edition of the Spanish Cinema Day, an event that we hope will be a regular feature as part of our annual cultural calendar.
The #SpanishCinemaDay aspires to be a collective effort of vindicating the importance of our cinema as a cultural heritage, as a source of a common identity and imaginary, and to this end, activities and actions are organized during a specific day - both within the Spanish territory and in the international arena—that help to highlight and celebrate the richness and diversity of our cinematography and strongly affirms 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 important filmmaker, vital for understanding the Spanish 20th century makes an interesting chronicle of the Spanish middle class in this historical film through the portrait of a couple in love, 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 its critical reading and the solvency of the cinema of an author, still in a state of grace.
Synopsis: Juan and María José, a couple in a past prior to the Spanish Civil War, meet after a few years of separation —after the war is over— and resume their love. But now María José is no longer available and their love turns into adultery.
[Reference: Dictionary of Ibero-American Cinema (Madrid, SGAE, 2012, p. 1003), by José Enrique Monterde].