MANILA, PHILIPPINES – To mark the month internationally devoted to women, this March, at Instituto Cervantes de Manila (Intramuros branch) it will be held a new edition of Espacio femenino, a yearly showcase dedicated to cinema made by and about women.
Curated by the platform Filmtopia, the 2026 program focuses on adolescence as a territory of transformation, uncertainty, and identity formation. Through four films from Spain and Latin America, the series explores the emotional intensity, contradictions, and discoveries that mark the passage from childhood to adulthood.
Historically, adolescence has occupied a powerful space in cinema—a moment of excess, rupture, and beginnings. This film series approaches this stage of life from distinctly female and diverse perspectives, steering away from traditional clichés that reduce youth to simple tales of romance, rebellion, or trauma.
In these movies, adolescence becomes a space of identity-making, desire, and negotiation with the norms imposed by the adult world. The selected films reflect vulnerability and instinctive strength, capturing that in-between moment when the body changes, social pressures intensify, and the world seems ready to be confronted. Through intimate, nuanced portrayals, the program highlights stories of growth, resistance, and the constant reshaping of the self—stories that echo the ever-shifting nature of adolescence itself.
FILM PROGRAMME
Sica (Spain, 2023 – 91 min)
March 03 – 2:00 pm
Directed by Carla Subirana
Languages: Galician and Catalan | Not recommended for children under 7
In this intimate and atmospheric work, Subirana portrays a young girl processing grief after her father goes missing in a shipwreck off Galicia’s Costa da Morte. As Sica searches the cliffs and forms an unexpected bond with Suso, a strange storm-chasing boy, she begins an emotional journey through memory, loss, and the unpredictable forces of nature.
Interested viewers may reserve their seats through the registration form:
https://forms.office.com/e/qa0NcLFZX5
Jone, a veces (Spain, 2025 – 87 min)
March 10 – 2:00 pm
Directed by Sara Fantova
Languages: Spanish and Basque | Not recommended for children under 12
Sara Fantova’s feature debut delicately explores identity formation and the father-daughter relationship. Set against Bilbao’s Semana Grande, the film follows Jone as she experiences her first love while confronting the rapid progression of her father’s Parkinson’s disease. This summer, filled with contradictions, becomes the threshold between the girl she was and the adult she is becoming.
Interested viewers may reserve their seats through the registration form:
https://forms.office.com/e/9SurRnYQP3
L’edat imminent (Spain, 2024 – 74 min)
March 17 – 2:00 pm
Directed by Colectivo Vigilia
Languages: Catalan and Spanish | Suitable for all audiences
This tender and precise portrait explores the bond between a grandmother and her teenage grandson during a decisive rite-of-passage moment. As Bruno juggles work, youth, and the responsibility of caring for his grandmother Nati, he must face the emotional challenge of letting go when she is finally granted a place in a public care home.
Interested viewers may reserve their seats through the registration form:
https://forms.office.com/e/AXenS5q14e
Tengo sueños eléctricos (Costa Rica/France/Belgium, 2022 – 103 min)
March 24 – 2:00 pm
Directed by Valentina Maurel
Languages: Spanish and English | Not recommended for children under 16
Valentina Maurel’s acclaimed first feature depicts adolescence as a storm of forbidden desires, emotional rupture, and simmering rage. Eva, caught between her parents after their divorce, follows her father—himself trapped in a kind of second adolescence—as she tries to find her own voice, her artistic ambition, and a way to navigate the anger she has unknowingly inherited.
Interested viewers may reserve their seats through the registration form:
https://forms.office.com/e/Z4vwC2BTZN
The film series “Espacio femenino” is presented by the Instituto Cervantes de Manila, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, AECID, and the Intramuros Administration. All films will be screened in OV, with English subtitles. Advance registration is recommended using the above-included links.
The Instituto Cervantes de Manila (Intramuros branch) is located at 385 Calle Real, Plaza San Luis Complex, Intramuros. For more information, please visit www.manila.cervantes.es or www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila.
