The Dinner

April 15, 1939, two weeks after the end of the Spanish Civil War. A lieutenant from the Franco army storms through the door of the Hotel Palace in Madrid with a surprising order: Prepare a banquet for Franco and his people -- for tonight. But all the hotel's chefs are imprisoned (and hate Franco), and good food is only available on the black market, so trouble is in line for Genaro, the waiter, who, with his gun to his forehead (in the literal sense), must say that there is no way around it...

There are quite a few good comedies about the Civil War, and 'The Dinner' is definitely one of them. It mixes effortless humor with earnest, flat clichés with deep insight, but is conscious of it -- and that's why it works. Imagine a mix of 'Downton Abbey', Pedro Almodovár and 'Sorry We Flee' and you're on track. 'The Dinner' is a wildly entertaining and well-toured film.

Director: Manuel Gómez Pereira
Starring: Mario Casas, Alberto San Juan, Asier Etxeandia, Nora Hernández, Oscar Lasarte
Country/year: Spain, France, 2025
Running time: 106 min.
Formato: DCP
Language: English subtitles
Age limit: Allowed for children over 15
Original title: La cena

Part of the series: Spanish Film Weeks
Documentary about forest fires in Galicia, miniseries about the 1981 coup attempt in the Spanish parliament, youth films about rap in Barcelona, a comedy about a celebratory dinner for Franco and a cleaning opera from Andalusia. Spanish film lovers are widely distributed in the Iberian Peninsula - both geographically, historically and in terms of genre.