This year's coordinator
Embassy of Spain to New ZealandCoordinator Message
Dear friends,
This year, the Latin America & Spain Film Festival (LASFF) in New Zealand reaches its 22nd edition. LASFF is a nonprofit event aiming to bring the Spanish and Latin American culture closer to New Zealanders. Each of the seven participating Embassies, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Spain, provides one recent film produced in its representing country that showcases our culture and way of life.
We do not only bring this event to the capital city, but to many cities all over the country. This year, we will show the LASFF in another nine cities, Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Napier, Whanganui, New Plymouth, Blenheim and Wellington. In every case, we cooperate closely with local institutions in the same way as we do with the Wellington City Council in the capital city.
Many public and private institutions sponsor the event and help us to get it done every year. I would like to thank all of them and invite others to join in the future. This is an inclusive event, meant to respect the values and principles shared by the participating countries and New Zealand.
My special thanks to all the local volunteers, which help us to bring the Festival all around New Zealand. Without their generous contribution, we would simply not be able to bring it to you.
This year, the Embassy of Spain has the honor to lead and coordinate this event. However, the seven participating embassies have worked closely and very hard, throughout the year, to organize it and I thank them all.
I hope that this event help us to make our common culture more present in New Zealand and to bring closer New Zealanders and the Latino community.
Catedral de Santiago de Compostela – Santiago de Compostela (Galicia).
Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias – Valencia (Comunidad Valenciana)
Naranco de Bulnes (Asturias)
About Spain
Spain is a country of dynamic and courageous people, full of energy and endowed with an undeniable ability for artistic and literary expression and for sport, on both an individual and collective level. We are creative, innovative and at the same time respectful of our heritage and traditions.
We communicate in the world’s second largest language by number of speakers, around 600 million, and the second most-used language in international communications. We are also a cultural and artistic world power (fifth on UNESCO’s list or artistic and historical heritage with 50 sites, only after Italy with 59, China with 57, and Germany and France, both with 52) as well as in terms of the environment and the biosphere.
Spain in the world’s top holiday tourism destination, the second largest tourist destination in the world in number of visitors and the third largest destination in number of international meetings, conferences, etc.
Spain is famous worldwide for its cuisine and fresh produce, with three restaurants among the World´s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 including Barcelona´s Disfrutar walking away with the top prize. Spain is known also as a world power in sports and we remain very grateful of the hospitality shown last year by New Zealand to our Women’s Football team that became World Champion for the first time ever.
In terms of heritage, Spain boasts unique of cave paintings, cities, castles, palaces, cathedrals and art from all periods and styles. Spain has its own personality throughout Europe and the world, which has been forged throughout the centuries: the presence of Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic cultures, Celts and Iberians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs and different medieval Spanish kingdoms, among others, have left an extensive and diverse archaeological and artistic heritage. For centuries we have been the natural bridge between the cultures of northern and southern Europe, and between Africa and the Mediterranean countries and, later, between Europe and America (which has left its own cultural traces on the Spanish and Latin American idiosyncrasy).
Art is an area in which our country is famous for its creativity and ingenuity. In fact, Spain has given the world renowned artists including Velázquez, Cervantes, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Miró or Gaudí, all representatives of our creativity, innovation, and aesthetic-artistic spirit. From the art of the Christians era until its fusion with Islamic Art, from Spain’s global peak during the Golden Age (mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century) to the Generations of ’98 and ’27, our country has been the birth place of numerous artists whose work reflects our land’s complex past but also speaks of our present and the future.
Today, the boom in the creation and dissemination of visual arts encourages the consideration of Spain not only as a creative power, but a market power as well.