web 2 - The Spirit of the Beehive 3
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present

The Spirit of the Beehive

Victor Erice | Spain | 1973 | Unclassified (15+)
Film

When

Wed 28 May 2025

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Set in the aftermath of Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War, but made in the dying days of his regime, Erice’s visually striking meditation on the power of imagination is widely considered one of the greatest Spanish films ever made.

After watching James Whale’s Frankenstein at a travelling cinema screening, six-year-old Ana (played by the remarkable Ana Torrent) finds her life in a Castilian village haunted by her memory of the film, with it becoming a mirror of the ghosts and ruins of the Civil War. A powerful act of resistance under fascism, Erice’s film’s profound simplicity is also a testament to the transcendental force of cinema itself.

Format: DCP
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Source: Tamasa
Courtesy: Tamasa
Runtime: 99 mins

Event duration

99 mins

Rating

Unclassified (15+)

Where

Cinema 1, Level 2
ACMI, Fed Square

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About Melbourne Cinémathèque

Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.

Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven. 

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