Mario Vargas Llosa

The Emma Bovary Trial

On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.

The Padilla Affair

Havana, spring 1971: The poet Heberto Padilla has just been set free and appears before the Cuban Writers' Union where he pronounces a statement of "heartfelt self-criticism", declares himself to be a counterrevolutionary agent and throws accusations of complicity at many of his colleagues present at the event, among them, his wife. A month previously, his arrest under the accusation of endangering the security of the Cuban state had mobilised prominent intellectuals all over the world, who wrote a letter to Fidel Castro calling for the release of the poet, whose only sin had been to dissent through his poetic work. The writer's mea culpa, the recording of which is shown for the first time to the public, marks the narrative line of a story including the testimonies of Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards and Fidel Castro.

A Philosopher in the Arena

After his retirement, french philosopher and bullfighting enthusiast Francis Wolff decides to embark on a journey to France, Spain and Mexico joined by two mexican filmmakers who hardly know anything about bullfighting, a culture whose days seem to be numbered. During their road trip, they encounter numerous personalities with whom they reflect on mankind’s relationship with animals and nature, but most importantly on our relationship with death and the meaning of the ultimate journey: life itself.

El Quijote desde la platea

How Don Quixote de la Mancha, the immortal character created by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605, has been depicted in cinema, television, cartoons, theater, opera, ballet and other artistic disciplines. An adventure that began more than four hundred years ago in the pages of a book and is far from coming to an end.

Mario y los perros

An account of the childhood and youth of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, and how the hard experiences he lived during these formative years led him to write and publish his first major work when he was only 26 years old.

Letters to Eloisa

The story of José Lezama Lima and his rise as a literary figure in Cuba and his tragic end, alone and silenced in his Havana home.

El corazón del Teatro Real

Documentary about an emblematic institution of the Spanish Arts, Madrid's Teatro Real, or Royal Theatre, released to celebrate it's 2nd centenary anniversary.

Las alturas de Macchu Picchu

The historical musical made in the Inca citadel in 1981 with texts by Pablo Neruda and music of The Jaivas. Special Guest: Mario Vargas Llosa in the presentation.

Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles

This 1987 documentary is the only window into an experimental open-air penal colony in the Peruvian Amazon, which no camera has ever entered and has been rarely written about.

Che: muerte de la utopia?

What does Che Guevara"s mythic presence represent to people at the turn of the century, and how do people define their concept of utopia?