Spectacle presents: Leones - 35MM

Jazmín López’s LEONES is a fairy tale drawn in sinuous, long Steadicam takes which call to mind similar hypnotic camerawork in films by Michaelangelo Antoioni or Max Ophuls. Widely celebrated on the festival circuit, the film curiously never received proper distribution in the United States despite the 24-year-old filmmaker’s preternatural command of mood and image, and copies have become hard to track down in the ensuing decade. Ten years later, the spontaneity of its teenage performers and its insinuating psychological texture have become unforgettable. Inspired by both avant-garde literature and real-life grief, López depicts youthful listlessness as a kind of festering, with the characters’ disjointed conversations rarely lining up in an equal exchange. LEONES is a work of pure cinema – surreal, melancholy, macabre, impossible to pin down but never obscure for its own sake. Spectacle is honored to collaborate with the Roxy Cinema on this tenth-anniversary 35mm presentation, in conjunction with the New York City premiere of López’s second feature IF I WERE THE WINTER ITSELF (2020).

Preceded by López’s 2007 short PARECE LA PIERNA DE UNA MUÑECA (9MIN, 35mm). Q&A with López moderated by Steve Macfarlane following screening.