SPA26 The Hunt

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the festival closes with acclaimed director Carlos Saura's The Hunt presented in a new restoration. Considered a landmark classic in Spanish cinema and a representative film of Nuevo cine español, The Hunt delivered Saura his first international success, being awarded Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1966 Berlin International Film Festival. Shot in arresting black and white, The Hunt is a thrilling psychological drama that delivers a skillful allegory of the wounds of the Spanish Civil War and subsequent Franco dictatorship. After eight years apart, old friends and veteran Falangists José (Ismael Merlo), Paco (Alfredo Mayo), and Luis (José María Prada), reunite for a day of hunting in the arid countryside on an old Civil War battlefield, with Paco’s brother-in-law, Enrique (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba) enthusiastically tagging along. Set over the course of a single scorching summer day, they spend their time drinking, reminiscing and hunting rabbits. However, as the day wears on, old tensions and resentments become more apparent, and violence soon bubbles to the surface.