BUTTERFLY’S TONGUE

Northern Spain in the mid-1930s. Moncho, an eight-year-old from a village in Galicia, is sent by his family to attend an intimidating new school where he is first frightened by the elderly, pinch-faced headmaster Don Gregorio. To the boy's rescue comes an unexpected friend…Don Gregorio, who, despite his age and countenance, is a compassionate and free-thinking humanitarian. He lives in a world filled with bowerbirds, butterflies, poetry, and love, and undertakes to educate Moncho in kind. Their idyllic teacher-student friendship is disrupted by the rising flames of the Spanish Civil War, and violent fascist intolerance of anyone whose personal and political philosophies run counter to Franco or the state church. Someone like Don Gregorio. The old scholar is portrayed by Fernando Fern?n Gom?z, one of Spanish cinema's most durable and respected actor-directors. Here, after six decades onscreen in prestige productions like “Belle Epoque” (18th CIFF, 1994), the venerable thespian is paired poignantly with child performer Manuel Lozano for an unforgettable look at a bygone era. (In Spanish with English subtitles.)