My Dearest Señorita

Adela is a spinster in her forties who lives alone. She is aware that she is not a normal woman as she needs to shave every day and is attracted to her maid. This was the first Spanish film to talk about sexual orientation, which was a taboo subject during Franco’s regime. Consider it a predecessor to some of Almodovar’s film dramas, with its extreme characters, suffering, provincialism; in the case of My Dearest Señorita, there’s a very light touch of all that. This film plays out something like the chorus of "Girls & Boys" by Blur but castizo in Spanish provinces. How the director escaped the Franco’s censorship is an enigma we will never truly understand.

**The screening of 'My Dearest Señorita' will be followed by the talk 'How could this film pass censorship?', by Prof Nuria Capdevila from The University of Exeter.