“Antonio Machado. Los Días Azules,” a film about the literary works, life and times of Spanish poet Antonio Machado, won the Audience Choice Award at the just concluded Pelicula-Spanish Film Festival.

The Audience Choice (Premio del Público) is an award bestowed upon the film that viewers have voted as the festival’s favorite, a tradition that began in 2004.

Directed by Laura Hojman, the documentary film’s title is based on the phrase "these blue days and this childhood sun", the last verse Antonio Machado wrote before he died, words that illustrate the beginning and end of his life, from his childhood in Seville to his exile in Collioure.

Created as an homage to the memory and works of Machado on his 80 th death anniversary, and to showcase the importance of culture in life, progress, and creating a better society, the film takes the viewer to the places where Machado lived and worked as a poet, philosopher, playwright, and as a citizen who defended culture and education as agents of societal change.

Presented by the Instituto Cervantes in Manila and Sydney and the Spanish Embassies in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia, the PELÍCULA Spanish Film Festival streamed four short films and 16 contemporary Spanish and Latin American feature films for free during the Festival’s 10-day run.

The cinematographic showcase also showcased screenings of films that have won the PELíCULA Audience Choice Award in the past years: Fuera de carta (Nacho G. Velilla, 2008), El secreto de sus ojos (Juan José Campanella, 2009), También la lluvia (Icíar Bollaín, 2010), Un cuento chino (Sebastián Borensztein, 2011) and Campeones (Javier Fesser, 2018).

Four award-winning short films also highlighted the Festival - the Philippines’ “Tarang”, Thailand’s “Aninsri Daeng”, Australia’s “Groundhog Night” and Spain’s “A la Cara”.

Pelicula also mounted webinars and online talks with the directors and industry workers of festival films. Participants included film stakeholders of Asian films in Europe and Spanish films in Asia.

For complete information on the Audience Choice Award or PELICULA>PELIKULA Film Festival, please visit www.pelikula.es, or the Facebook page of Instituto Cervantes in Manila: www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila