Cineteca Madrid celebrates a cinematic December with family friendly Christmas films, major literary adaptations and the Animario festival
- This month’s program at this venue of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports looks at cinema as memory, imagination and a pure form of creation.
- Family Christmas brings together major animated titles, from Miyazaki to Don Bluth, with stops along the way at Tim Burton and Wes Anderson.
- The 8th edition of Animario kicks off, with Mexico as this year’s guest country.
- Cineteca highlights two key figures of French animation, Sylvain Chomet and René Laloux.
- The Linterna session, with Miguel Agnes and Brays Efe, revives The Unknown, Tod Browning’s masterpiece.
- And as part of the Phantom Project, filmmaker and musician Cristóbal Fernández will meet with Isaki Lacuesta and Àlex Monner to talk about the creative process behind making a rock film.
Cineteca Madrid opens December with a focus on memory, imagination and the legacy of animated cinema. The cycle Always Classics returns with a selection of literary adaptations that have shaped the Christmas imagination for nearly a century, while Family Christmas brings together animated gems for all ages. Meanwhile, the eighth edition of Madrid’s Contemporary Animation Festival Animario sets its sights on Mexico and the creative power of its current animation scene, alongside retrospectives dedicated to Sylvain Chomet and René Laloux. The month also includes a celebration of the centenary of absolute film, a new Linterna session and a Phantom Project event that explores music, image and film creation.
Always Classics: legendary literary adaptations
The Always Classics cycle returns with a journey through key literary adaptations that have shaped Christmas imagery since the early days of film. The program opens with the romantic delicacy of The Shop Around the Corner (USA, 1940), Ernst Lubitsch’s masterpiece that turns a humble gift shop into the perfect setting for a play of identities and emotions. From there, it moves into psychological horror with The Shining (UK USA, 1980), where Stanley Kubrick transformed Stephen King’s novel into a haunting trip through the intimate ghosts of family and memory. The month also offers one of the most beloved films of all time, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (USA, 1946), echoed by the classic warmth of Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, USA, 1947).
Christmas also takes unexpected forms. Die Hard (John McTiernan, USA, 1988), adapted from Roderick Thorp’s novel, became a milestone of action cinema, while The Grand Budapest Hotel (USA Germany, 2014), loosely inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig, unfolds Wes Anderson’s meticulous and playful universe. The cycle also explores the folds of disenchantment in The Dead (UK Ireland, 1987), where John Huston adapted James Joyce’s celebrated final story into an intimate and luminous farewell.
To close the year, Cineteca programs 3 Godfathers (USA, 1948) by John Ford, an emotional reinterpretation of the biblical Magi in the form of a western. Meanwhile, Little Women (USA, 2019), in Greta Gerwig’s version, updates Louisa May Alcott from a vibrant, contemporary point of view. The selection concludes with Carol (UK USA France), Todd Haynes’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel.
Family Christmas: animated gems
The Family Christmas cycle brings together some of the most popular animated films of recent decades. The journey begins with Ponyo (Japan, 2008), where Hayao Miyazaki turns the story of a fish girl and the boy who saves her into an oceanic adventure. The epic tone arrives with The Prince of Egypt (Simon Wells, Steve Hickner, Brenda Chapman, USA, 1998), one of the most ambitious animated productions of the 90s. Added to this are the handcrafted ingenuity of James and the Giant Peach (USA, 1996), Henry Selick’s stop motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic, and the mythological energy of Hercules (John Musker, Ron Clements, USA, 1997), Disney’s vibrant reinterpretation of the Greek hero.
The cycle also recovers two of Don Bluth’s most iconic films: An American Tail (USA, 1986), a story of migration and hope, and The Land Before Time (USA, 1988), the prehistoric odyssey of young dinosaurs learning to survive through friendship. The program closes with two unforgettable titles: Fantastic Mr. Fox (USA, 2009), where Wes Anderson adapts Roald Dahl with dry humor and artisanal flair, and Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, Mike Johnson, USA UK, 2005), a gothic stop motion gem blending romance and melancholy.
8th Madrid Contemporary Animation Festival Animario
The eighth edition of Animario looks this year toward Mexico, the guest country whose animated cinema is experiencing extraordinary vitality. The festival opens with Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (France, 2025), the highly anticipated new work from Sylvain Chomet, and closes with Arco (France, 2025) by Ugo Bienvenu, awarded at Annecy and praised for its refined graphic vision.
Beyond the Mexican focus, Animario dedicates a special section to Slovenian animation, curated by Igor Prassel. The program includes special screenings of Decorado, presented by Alberto Vázquez, and Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, accompanied by director Irene Iborra, as well as an International Competition gathering some of the year’s most notable works.
The cinema of Sylvain Chomet and René Laloux
Coinciding with the premiere of his latest film at Animario, Cineteca dedicates a cycle to the work of Sylvain Chomet, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary animation. The lineup includes The Triplets of Belleville (France Canada Belgium, 2003), a burst of jazz rhythm that revitalized European animation; The Illusionist (France UK, 2010), his delicate and nostalgic adaptation of a Jacques Tati script; and Attila Marcel (France, 2013), his first live action film.
René Laloux, a key figure of European fantastical animation, is the subject of another focus this month. Known for creating worlds that oscillate between political allegory and dream, Laloux influenced generations of viewers. The cycle features Fantastic Planet (France Czechoslovakia, 1973), an existential fable turned cult classic, and Time Masters (France Switzerland Hungary Germany, 1982), a cosmic journey where adventure, science fiction and philosophical reflection merge in a story of survival and transformation.
100 years of absolute film
In 1925, Berlin hosted the screening Der Absolute Film, which gathered works by artists who saw cinema as a pure form of visual expression, free of narrative or plot. One hundred years later, Cineteca celebrates the event with a special session that brings together several of the films shown then with contemporary works awarded at the Punto y Raya Festival.
Phantom Project: a conversation on cinema and rock
As part of the Phantom Project, supported by Madrid’s contemporary creation grants, filmmaker and musician Cristóbal Fernández will meet with Isaki Lacuesta and Àlex Monner to talk about the process of creating a rock film. Moderated by Elías León Siminiani, the session will go through the stages of filmmaking from writing to editing and reflect on the relationship between music and image. The meeting includes a screening of Step Across the Border (Nicolas Humbert, Werner Penzel, Germany Switzerland, 1990), a cult film dedicated to guitarist Fred Frith.
Other cycles and premieres
To end the year, Cineteca presents Chapter XXVI: carte blanche to Kyria Libia, part of the monthly cycle Stories of Noise, in collaboration with Matadero Madrid’s Center for Artistic Residencies, where the artist is developing an experimental electronic music project titled El arrobamiento.
In a new Linterna session, Miguel Agnes and Brays Efe revive The Unknown (USA, 1927), Tod Browning’s masterpiece starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford. Shot during the golden age of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the film condenses the darkness and fascination of Browning’s universe. Few silent films retain the atmospheric power this one still holds.
The program also includes the premieres of Supernatural, Querido Trópico, The Bewilderment of Chile; screenings from FESCIMED, the International Film Festival for Democratic Memory; a special screening of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973); Christmas Evil (1980) in La Noche Z; and two films closing the retrospective dedicated to Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz, The Suspended Vocation (1978) and Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983). Rounding out the month are the DOCMA cycle with Os Naufragados; Así son las cosas with La romería de los cornudos by María Alcaide; Foro CIMA; and Imprescindibles TVE with the documentary Maruja Torres. Ganas de contar, with the journalist herself attending the screening.
More information and contact:
comunicacion@mataderomadrid.org