Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo

Right now there is a film festival taking place in Sevilla. It is called "Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo" It consists of a number of European films some dating as far back as the eighties. My friend bought a package that had 30 tickets and he invited me to a few.


 This week I have seen The Hit (La Venganza) and Ajami.

The Hit was a British movie from 1984. This action movie, taking place in Spain, was about a criminal in London who snitched on his friends (bank robbers) in order to escape jail. After he confesses and escapes jail he takes refuge in Spain and lives 10 years without incident. However he is captured and in the process the people who kidnapped him killed a Guardia Civil. The movie was about the Spanish Governments efforts to find who murdered their officer and also rescue the man who was kidnapped.  


The Guardia Civil is a federal military-status police force in Spain. They were founded in 1844 during the time of Queen Elizabeth II. The purpose of their creation was to dismantle any revolutionary sentiment in the rural population. They always travel in pairs, most famously by horseback. I have heard many times in books, papers, and from people that you don't mess with them. I'm currently reading a book called Iberia, written by James A. Michener, which is about his expierneces in Spain. He devoted a whole section of a chapter to talk about La Guardia Civil and recant stories that he has heard about them. I am going to put in two stories that stood out. (This book was published in 1968 so many of the stories are well over 75 years old. 
   

"An Englishwoman staggered into an Extremaduran town with a terrifying tale. She had been in a little village where a gang of gypsies had molested her, trying to steal her purse. Two officers came on the scene and began to rough the gypsies up, whereupon the latter, fed up with previous pressure from the Guardia Civil, cut their throats to the neck bone. Someone from the village ran to report the murders to a neighboring Guardia station, whereupon four pairs of guardia climbed into a truck, drove to the scene of the murder, threw a cordon around the gypsy encampment an proceeded to machine-gun every human being therein"

 "An American working in a bar along the Mediterranean coast got drunk and slugged a guardia. He was hauled off to a military jail, where he was held incommunicado for six weeks, for the guardia are under military rule and offenses against them are judged by court-martial. Efforts of a most extraordinary kind were made to gain the young man's release, but to no avail. "We can't allow anyone to strike a member of the Guardia Civil,' his friends were told. 'No one.' Finally he was brought to secret trial and sentenced to seven years in military prison" 

From the stories you can see they are not to be taken lightly. The last part of the chapter he writes "No matter what you do, no matter what happens, never touch a guardia." 

Guardia Civil back in the day

The second movie, "Ajami" an Israeli drama from 2009. It was in Arabic with spanish subtitles. This was actually a really good movie. It reminded me a lot of the movie "crash" The story was told in 4 chapters from different points of view, each time learning a little more about the story. I recommend the movie to any who haven't seen it.

I am going to see at least one more movie this week. I wish I would have gone to more, but I am glad I got to see a few.