VAMPIR, CUADECUC (1971) / UMBRACLE (1972) DOUBLE FEATURE

"THIS IS RADICAL CINEMA..."-ARTFORUM

Pere Portabella has been a pioneering movie producer and celebrated Spanish statesman, denounced by both the Franco dictatorship and The Vatican. But it's his subversive work as a director that has rewritten the rules of genre narrative. Or as The Museum of Modern Art says, "The films of Portabella expand the expressive potential of cinema": In 1970, Portabella was invited by Jess Franco to make a behind-the-scenes documentary on the filming of COUNT DRACULA. Instead, CUADECUC VAMPIR became a dreamlike deconstruction of myths, monsters and moviemaking featuring Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom and Soledad Miranda as you've never seen them before. Christopher Lee also stars in Portabella's companion piece UMBRACLE, an unsettling journey through dread, violence and discontinuity with Lee at his most candid. Both films are now scanned in HD from Portabella's own vault elements for the first time ever in America.

VAMPIR, CUADECUC A film shot behind another! Everything is turned inside out behind the scenes of Jesús Franco’s 1972 mainstream horror film starring Christopher Lee, Count Dracula, as Spanish Pere Portabella turns on-set footage into an abbreviated, self-reflexive and surrealist version of the Count’s story.

UMBRACLE is made up of fragments (some are archive footage) that resound rather than progress by unusual links, with dejá vu scenes that promise us more but remain intensely unfinished. It stars Christopher Lee, wandering around a dream-like Barcelona.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• A Cinema Of Vampires: Pere Portabella, Jess Franco And The School Of Barcelona – Interview With Spanish Film Scholar Dr. Álex Mendíbil
• English and Spanish audio tracks
• Trailer
• Booklet Featuring Text By Pere Portabella And Film Critics Jonathan Rosenbaum And Federico Karstulovich
• REGION-FREE