The director, screenwriter, actor and producer Javier Calvo (‘La Mesías’, ‘Veneno’, ‘Paquita Salas’) stars in the latest installment of ‘Scheduled by’audiovisual cycle organized by SGAE Foundation in which renowned creators present the films they would see again on the big screen.
With the focus on Christmas, Calvo has selected five author feature films whose plot takes place at this time of year: ‘Placid’by Luis García Berlanga, ‘Fanny y Alexander’de Ingmar Bergman, ‘Eyes Whide Shut’de Stanley Kubrick, ‘Carol‘, by Todd Haynes, and ‘The invisible thread’by Paul Thomas Anderson. The selection can be enjoyed from December 16 to 20, 2025, in a double session, at the Sala Berlanga in Madrid for 3.5 euros.
“A few years ago I was in New York one winter, one of the coldest winters I remember. It snowed so heavily that we couldn’t leave the house. That winter, in one of my favorite movie theaters, the Metrograph, they scheduled a Christmas season with films that are not typical Christmas ones but more authorial and whose plot takes place during Christmas“, recalled Calvo, who will delve into its programming in a discussion with the public and the critic Luis Martínez after the screening on December 18.
The filmmaker affirms that films that take place at Christmas have “something nostalgic, cozy, mysterious.” “With the cold of these weeks in Madrid, at this time of year, being in a movie theater becomes a refuge“, he assures.
“The movies I have chosen are some of my favorite movies that have Christmas as a background. They are exciting, deep films, and every time I watch them again I discover new things. For me these movies are a safe place“–he expressed–“But not only that. All of them delve into the conflict between the structure and the individual, social or economic oppression and tradition. “Partner or family relationships whose dynamics become a battlefield.”