SILVER

[CERRAR LOS OJOS]
Spanish auteur Víctor Erice returns to feature filmmaking after a three-decade-long absence with this hauntingly personal, discursive and simmering reflection on memory, art and the passage of time. Years after his lead actor and best friend, Julio, disappears suddenly from a film shoot, filmmaker Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) is approached by a TV show profiling this unsolved mystery. This sets in motion a series of encounters from Miguel's past, including a meeting with Julio's abandoned daughter (played by THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE's child lead Ana Torrent, now a seasoned actor, reuniting with Erice after a half century). Leisurely but deliberately paced, CLOSE YOUR EYES' mystery unfolds and builds to a potent crescendo, confronting dichotomies of past and present, text and metatext, celluloid and digital and history and modernity. In its culmination, Erice reveals an act of cinematic awakening that curiously reflects on his own extended absence and revered identity in cinema. (Note courtesy of AFI FEST.) Official Selection, 2023 Cannes, Toronto and New York film festivals. DIR/SCR/PROD Víctor Erice; SCR Michel Gaztambide; PROD José Alba, Odile Antonio-Baez, Agustín Bossi, Pablo E. Bossi, Pol Bossi, Maximiliano Lasansky, Cristina Zumárraga. Spain/Argentina, 2023, color, 169 min. In English, Spanish and Chinese with English subtitles. NOT RATED

No AFI Member passes accepted.