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Afternoons of Solitude Pre-recorded Q&A Screening

Synopsis

Screening:
Sunday, April 19
Luna Leederville
4:00pm

Screening with a post-film pre-recorded conversation between director Albert Serra and critic Daniel Fairfax.

Winner of the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, Afternoons of Solitude (Tardes De Soledad) sees Spanish auteur Albert Serra turn his singular gaze toward the ritualised world of bullfighting. Rejecting narration and conventional documentary structure, Serra’s camera stays intimately close to star matador Andrés Roca Rey as he prepares for, enters, and confronts the spectacle of the arena.

What emerges is less a documentary about sport than a stark meditation on ritual, performance and mortality. Serra observes the choreography of the corrida with a cool, unwavering eye, allowing moments of beauty, tension and brutality to unfold without commentary.

Since its premiere, Afternoons of Solitude has provoked admiration and fierce debate in equal measure — a work of austere cinematic power that asks audiences to confront a centuries-old tradition in all its complexity.

Please note: this film contains graphic scenes of bullfighting.

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024 | Winner: Golden Shell for Best Film, Feroz Zinemaldia Award, Ateneo Guipuzcoano Award
Indiewire Critics' Poll 2025 | Winner: Best Documentary
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2025 | Winner: The Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Award
European Film Awards 2025 | Nominee: Best European Film, Best European Documentary
Guadalajara International Film Festival 2025 | Winner: Best Documentary

Spanish with English subtitles

Opening Date

Sunday, Apr 19, 2026

Rating

CTC

Length

125m

Genre

DocumentaryNew Release

Reviews

A major work from a richly maturing filmmaker.

Variety

An unblinking look at bullfighting and the surrounding culture of bravado and machismo, expertly shot and edited with a sense of ritualistic order.

The Guardian

In its graceful intertwining of meditation and obscenity, “Afternoons of Solitude” gives an ancient, controversial tradition the chance to shock and awe without hype or favor.

Los Angeles Times

Whatever feelings you may have with this mixture of pageantry, masculinity, barely sublimated ritual sacrifice, nationalism, and sensuality, Afternoons of Solitude affords ample opportunity to explore them.

Slant

Unflinching... allows viewers to lose sight of their perspective at the same time as it invites them to draw their own conclusions, a vertigo which proves to be more involving than the didacticism.

IndieWire

Serra masterfully captures the complexity of the sport in an ambitiously objective manner. No matter your take on the sport – love it or loathe it – this doc’s a work of true art.

Point of View Magazine

Serra’s vision is mesmeric not polemic. He records spangled ceremonies marinated in the fear of death, producing an X-ray of the male ego and its costly upkeep.

The New York Times