ESFF 2025 Schools Programme
Twelve years after its inception, ESFF remains committed to the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language in primary and secondary schools.
This October, we would like to invite students and their teachers to an exclusive in-person screening for secondary schools. We also have online options.
Online:
Buñuel in the labyrinth of turtles: adapted from the comic of the same name by Fermín Solís, this animation—winner of the Goya Award for Best Animated Film in 2020—presents the story of how Luis Buñuel filmed Las Hurdes, tierra sin pan (1933) in the Extremaduran region of Las Hurdes. After the release of his scandalous first feature, L’Age d’Or, Buñuel found many doors closed to him. However, his friend, the sculptor Ramón Acín, bought a lottery ticket with the wild promise that if he won, he would finance the documentary that the Spanish director had in mind.
Classification: 12A
Recommended ages: 12–15 years
Themes: documentary filmmaking, poverty, life in Spain
Trigger warning and content note: The film includes some scenes that may be disturbing to sensitive viewers, such as depictions of extreme poverty, animal suffering, and harsh social realities. Teacher guidance is recommended to help contextualize these images from a historical, artistic, and ethical perspective, and to encourage critical reflection on the role of documentary cinema, the social context of the time, and the tensions between art and truth.
Interested schools will receive a link for asynchronous viewing of the film along with a workbook of activities.
The Footballest: this film follows the story of a Spanish school football team made up of 11-year-old children. They are ranked near the bottom of the league table and face the threat of being replaced by a choir unless they win their next match. Unfortunately, the referees mysteriously fall asleep halfway through the games, suggesting that the opposing teams may be cheating.
Classification: 9A
Recommended ages: 9–12 years
Themes: teamwork, childhood and sports, family comedy
Content guidance: Mild threat, comedic in tone. Mild language. Mild violence, comedic in tone. Two children’s football teams compete; one team is aggressive and intentionally injures the other through foul play. This is portrayed negatively. Brief depiction of injury.
To participate, registration through our Eventbrite event using an institutional email account is required.
In-person
Breaking walls: At the end of the 1980s, a group of parents from the working-class suburbs of Bilbao, in northern Spain, suddenly face a challenge they are completely unprepared for. Their daughters are part of a rhythmic gymnastics team, and an important competition in this sport is soon to take place in Berlin—a competition all of them want to attend. Since the mothers, busy with their jobs, cannot accompany them, the aitas—the fathers, in Basque—take responsibility. The resulting portrayal of fatherhood is both tender and humorous, as one might expect when a group of fathers is left in charge of a group of girls who, it seems, are far more aware of what is going on around them.
Rating: 12A
Ages: 12 to 15 years
Themes: fatherhood, the fall of the Berlin Wall, social movements.
Content note: Infrequent strong language, non-threatening. Infrequent violence. Brief depiction of injury.
Depictions of adults smoking cigarettes and excessive alcohol consumption. Some characters are shown hungover and vomiting. There is speculation that a man is drinking and driving, but this is proven false.
Date: 1st of October at 10.30 am
At: Filmhouse, 88 Lothian Rd, Edinburgh EH3 9BZ.
Tickets: £5.00 (students), complimentary tickets for teachers.
*The box office for this event will be managed by the Filmhouse.
CartasVivas: Spanish women who, during the Transition, reveal the tensions of modern Spanish society. Three thinkers, authors, and activists—Consuelo Berges (Maite Jiménez), María Laffitte (Ascen López), and Lilí Álvarez (Montse Roig de Puig)—return to the present to speak to us about women’s memory during the Transition to the Spain we know today.
Rating: 12A
Ages: 12 to 15 years
Themes: women creators, memory, Spanish Transition, democracy.
When: 3rd of October at 10:00 am
French Institute, W Parliament Sq, Edinburgh EH1 1RN
Free event, booking necessary
