Autumn brings a fresh slate of cinema in Alicante, featuring a mix of classic films, beloved reruns, and unreleased documentaries. The Valencian Institute of Culture’s film library in Alicante hosts Arniches Theatre and kicks off in September with a retrospective honoring David Lynch. It blends remastered versions of Lynch’s standout titles with another showcase focused on cinema produced in the Community of Valencia. The program has earned Berlanga Awards recognition and includes a feature dedicated to circus-themed cinema. In parallel, the Mediterranean Cinematheque presents October screenings that emphasize music documentaries, highlighting artists who shaped pop music in recent years, often before screening in Alicante. The lineup includes Tequila, Coke Malla, and Kiko Veneno, with nods to flamenco legends such as Jorge Pardo and Sara Baras.
Filmoteca de Sant Joan enters the final four months of the year with planned programming that continues into 2024, though scheduling will pause briefly due to air conditioning renovations at the Culture House hosting the projections.
movie library
The Movie Library series returns with Thursday evenings at 7:30 in a lineup that opens on September 14 with one of Lynch’s most enigmatic films, Lost Highway (1997), featuring Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman. The sequence continues with Mulholland Drive (2001) on September 28, starring Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Described by Filmoteca as a cinema that can be appreciated even when the plot remains elusive, this experience is often best enjoyed in a living room setting. For those seeking a different take, the true story of a filmmaker can be found in Lynch’s work on December 7, with the film True Story (1999) presenting a clear, poignant narrative as the director experiments with accessibility. On December 21, a documentary about Lynch, David Lynch: Your Art Life (2016), completes the Lynch mini-retrospective.
Filmoteca also recommends a trio of Valencian productions that received multiple Berlanga Awards in 2022. The first centers on the unlikely friendship of two strangers in a wary world, Vasil, directed by Avelina Prat, premiering September 21. The second tells the tale of Oriol and Elena Lopez Riera as they blend fantasy and costume in that season’s October feature. The third is a family-friendly comedy packed with originality from Roberto Bueso, screening on December 14.
The program, produced in collaboration with Circarte festival, includes a special screening connected to a circus theme on October 19. A personal look at Ingmar Bergman is paired with a circus night titled Bergman and the Circus (1953).
cinematheque
Mediterranean Cinematheque presents screenings on Mondays at 7:00 pm inside the Aula de Cultura de Alicante, focusing on documentaries that trace national and international pop and rock history, alongside features from the Flemish tradition showcased within the festival at the Akdeniz Foundation headquarters.
Programming begins on October 14 with the film Tequila: Sex, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll, told by Cecilia Roth and featuring surviving members of a legendary rock group. The subsequent week brings Trance by Emilio Belmonte, a study of flamenco music through the flute and saxophone of Jorge Pardo, a pivotal figure in understanding the evolution of contemporary flamenco.
A lesser-known documentary arrives on October 30, We Ride, a 2020 piece by Anita Rivaroli that chronicles a remarkable rock moment in Cesena, Italy, when a thousand instrumentalists joined to play Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters, a moment that drew Dave Grohl into the performance.
November brings four flamenco documentaries: Seven Jelly, Cante Jondo, Granada, 1922, and an animated feature tracing the long arc of the famous Cante Jondo competition, supported by Manuel de Falla and Federico Garcia Lorca among others. Sara Baras: All Voices follows, along with Lobo Lopez One Day, a portrait by Alejandro Salgado about a musician straddling flamenco and pop genres.
The season closes on December 4 with the latest documentary Coke Mesh, Jorge (2022), chronicling the return of a Los Ronaldos frontman from youth stardom to a modern writer-performer of Spanish pop-rock classics.