Blancanievies

The Brothers Grimm get a sumptuous reinvention in Blancanieves, the new silent, black-and-white offering from writer-director Pablo Berger, which won the Goya Award for Best Picture.  Taking on the mantle of Snow White, Carmencita is the daughter of a celebrated matador; cast from grace when her now-quadriplegic father marries his nurse, the cruel, conniving Encarna (Spanish star Maribel Verdú, from Y tu Mamá También). Rescued by a troupe of bullfighting dwarves, Carmencita discovers a new but equally perilous calling: becoming Spain’s first female toreador.

Revelling in the melodramatic filmmaking of cinema’s Golden Age and laced with a gleeful sense of high camp and high tragedy, Berger’s film is a dizzying, charming and entirely unique take on one of our most beloved stories. – MIFF 2013