Opening the Spanish Film Festival was Official Competition, a biting satire from writer-directors Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn that pokes fun at the usual suspects of the arthouse cinema it emulates.
Pretentiousness, petty jealousies, vanity, high art versus low are mercilessly punctured.
Pharmaceuticals billionaire Humberto Suarez (Luis Gomez) wants to leave his mark on the world.
The octogenarian tycoon has his eyes on a bridge in his name.
His young financial adviser Matias (Manolo Solo) convinces him to finance a film instead.
But not any old film; this will be an arthouse film about two warring brothers, rivalry, based on a Nobel-prize-winning novel to be directed by an avant-garde, feminist auteur, Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz).
Cast from opposite ends of the acting spectrum, Lola throws together ageing heartthrob Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and distinguished theatre maestro Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez).
Lola, Felix and Ivan embark on a nine-day rehearsal process where the actors are subjected to increasingly oddball trust exercises and mind games by Lola.
The monumental brutalist edifice, the Suárez Foundation HQ, provides the rehearsal space yet can barely contain Ivan and Felix’s giant alpha male egos.
In-jokes abound. At one point, Lola throws the actors’ awards into a metal crusher, including the very same Venice Film Festival award, the Cuppa Volpi, which Martinez received for The Distinguished Citizen, also directed by Duprat and Cohn.
Banderas also provides a fabulous in-joke, declaring that he would never attend the Oscars as the token Latino, only to be caught later practising his Oscar speech in a bathroom.
The ensemble cast brilliantly nails their characters, but Cruz, as the manipulative and obsessive Lola, steals the show in this clever, dark comedy.
The Spanish Film Festival runs until May 15. www.spanishfilmfestival.com/

• Review by Kathryn Keeble