Interval 39. Ion de Sosa
Mamántula
Free, until full capacity is reached. Tickets may be collected at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 17 January (a maximum of 2 per person). 20% of the visitor-capacity will be reserved for attendance without ticket collection on the day of the activity. Doors open 30 minutes before the activity
Intervals is the Museo Reina Sofía’s regular programme premiering recent film work, made up of critically acclaimed films from the year in progress or the previous one. The centrepiece of this new edition is Mamántula (2023), by Ion de Sosa (Urnieta, Gipuzkoa, 1981), a fictional feature-length film on the freedom of desire which blends psychosexual thriller, gay porn and science fiction. The screening includes a presentation and talk by the director in both sessions.
Mamántula is a man desired by all, but also secretly a human tarantula transvestite, spawned during a brief encounter in a far-off paradise. In an alternative present of cruising, brutalist saunas, never-ending metro walkways and raincoat-and-trilby-wearing detectives, Mamántula lovers fall victim to its insatiable lust for blood and semen. Each new conquest is one further thread in the stellar web it weaves to return to the dimension to which it belongs, or perhaps to inhabit the Earth’s pleasures forever.
The film sets forth an LGTBIAQ+ twist to crime and sci-fi film by one of the cult names from so-called “other Spanish cinema”. Ion de Sosa has also directed the feature-length films True Love (2011) and Sueñan los androides (2014), the latter screened at festivals and art centres such as Viennale (Vienna), Berlinale (Berlin), the Lincoln Center (New York) and the Museo Reina Sofía. He has also worked as a cinematographer on the films El futuro (2013), by Luis López Carrasco; María Pérez Sanz’s Karen (2020); Espíritu Sagrado (2021), by Chema García Ibarra; and El fantástico caso del Golem (2022), by Burnin’ Percebes.
Programme
Ion de Sosa. Mamántula
Germany and Spain, 2023, colour, original version in Spanish, 16 mm transferred to DA, 47’
—Featuring a presentation and talk by the film-maker, alongside actress Lorena Iglesias and dialogist Julián Génisson, in both sessions
Credits
- Director:
- Ion de Sosa
- Cast:
- Lorena Iglesias, Marta Bassols, Moisés Ricart, Kate Strong, Marcio Reolón and Adolfo Assor
- Script:
- Mamen Díaz, Violeta Rodríguez and Ion de Sosa
- Dialogues:
- Julián Génisson
- Production:
- Paola Álvarez, Leire Apellaniz, Ion de Sosa and Tasio
- Executive production:
- Paola Álvarez and Carmen Lacasa
- Cinematography:
- Jorge Castrillo
- Editing:
- Sergio Jiménez
- Art director:
- Carmen Main
- Sound:
- Brendan Golden (APSA), Paciencia - José Tena & Tasio, and Manuel Escorihuela
- Original music:
- Marta Peláez Corchs "Severine Beata"
- Animation:
- Stanley Sunday
- VFX:
- DVEIN Teo Guillem & Carlos Pardo Ros
- Funding:
- Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and ICAA (Spain’s Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute)
- Festivals and awards:
- premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival (2023) and part of the official sections of Márgenes (2023), with an Audience Award, and the Rotterdam Film Festival (2024).