La jota

Using a minimal yet elegant black-box setting, legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura brings to life the origins and stylistic variations of the Jota, a rich, sensual waltz born in 18th-century Aragon, with equally sumptuous regional variations across Spain and its former colonies. Throughout the last four decades Saura has interspersed dramatic features with nonfiction music films, including Tango, Fados and the recent Flamenco, Flamenco. His films don't just preserve these deeply rooted musical forms, but assert their dazzling vitality. Alive with vivid colors and stirring performances, the director presents each variation as a distinct vignette, each with its own unique thematic setting and often using rich archival footage and playful in-camera and rear-projection effects. From the creepy dark magic of The Tarantula to the stark, reflective power of the Spanish Civil War-era homage Rosa, Rosae and ending in a rapturous village festival, J: Beyond Flamenco is a modern master's love-letter to one of his homeland's timeless cultural traditions. (Palm Springs International Film Festival)