Five Must-See Films at the 2016 Spanish Film Festival

Having said au revoir to the French Film Festival, it's now time to slip over the border into Spain. Returning to Palace Cinemas around the country, this year's Spanish Film Festival will once again showcase some of the biggest and most critically acclaimed Spanish and Latin American films from the past 12 months. How's that for a cinematic siesta?

The festival — which will feature at Leichhardt's Palace Norton Street and Paddington's Palace Verona — begins with the highest grossing film at last year's Spanish box office: rom-com sequel Spanish Affair 2. Other comic standouts include espionage spoof Spy Time, madcap ensemble My Big Night, and dark domestic comedy Happy 140.

Of course, not everything on the program is quite so light and breezy. Critically acclaimed drama Much Ado About Nothing confronts legal and political corruption in modern day Chile, while Ma Ma stars Penelope Cruz in one of her most nuanced roles to date, as a put-upon single mother diagnosed with breast cancer.

Below, we've put together a list of the five films on the lineup that have caught our eye. For the full program, go here.

THE THIN YELLOW LINE

This comedy-drama hybrid, directed by first time writer-director Celso Garcia, is a road movie, but not in the way you'd expect. The Thin Yellow Line follows a misfit group of five cash-strapped men tasked with painting the dashed yellow line along more than 200 kilometres of Mexican highway. You only need to take a brief look at the trailer to appreciate the film's gorgeous cinematography and bittersweet tone. If that's not enough to convince you, consider the fact that it's executive produced by Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak director Guillermo del Toro.

THE CLAN

Based on a chilling true story, this Argentinean thriller tells the story of the Puccios, a seemingly normal family living in Buenos Aires in the 1980s who made their living kidnapping people and holding them to ransom. The film broke box office records in Argentina, screened in competition at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival, and has scored plenty of positive critical buzz, with Variety comparing it to the movies of John Carpenter, Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese. Consider our expectations set very, very high.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Another true story from Latin America, Much Ado About Nothing is a far cry from the light-hearted Shakespearean comedy with which it shares a title. Instead, Alejandro Fernandez Almendras' film takes place in present day Chile, and follows a young man who finds himself framed for a fatal hit-and-run committed by the son of a powerful politician. A grim indictment of corruption in the upper echelon of Chilean society, the film received strong reviews and a Grand Jury Prize nomination at Sundance earlier this year.

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

This year's closing night film floored audiences at Cannes and scored a 2016 Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Inspired by the journals of two separate Western explorers who travelled to the Amazon decades apart, Embrace of the Serpent is described in the festival program as "a breathtaking cinematic odyssey". With startling, unsettling imagery shot in hypnotic black and white, and dialogue spoken in over ten different languages, the film promises to be like nothing else you'll see at the festival — or indeed, the movies — this year.

NOTHING IN RETURN

In Daniel Guzmán's Nothing in Return, 16-year-old Dario finds himself on the search for a surrogate family in the wake of his parents' divorce. Enter his best friend Luismi, a car mechanic named Caralimpia and a sweet little old lady named Antonia. At first glance the film looks like a fairly standard coming-of-age tale, but the fact that it scored a pair of gongs — for Best New Actor and Best New Director at Spain's most recent Goya Awards — has us curious to check it out. And as an added bonus, Guzmán is a guest of the festival this year, and will be on hand at screenings in Sydney and Melbourne for a post-film Q&A.

The Spanish Film Festival will run from April 12 until May 1. For more information, visit the festival website.