In Umbracle, an aleatory horror film that paints a critical image of Francoist Spain, Portabella continues his exploration of the language of experimental cinema and develops his aesthetic of combining documentary with reenactment. He worked with Christopher Lee to produce an "ideal and predetermined cliché[d]" image of an actor: "Lee offered to perform my ideas with pleasure. I even managed to get him to do the hardest thing an actor can do: nothing." Low-budget horror-film star Christopher Lee makes a second appearance as the iconic centerpiece of a Portabella film (CUADECUC--VAMPIR was his first), this time as an imposing but ghostly figure wandering the streets of Barcelona. Through film clips that evoke Chaplin and other silent-era comedians, Dadaist poetry, and mysterious melodrama, Portabella makes a bid for unfettered artistic freedom calculated to scramble the brains of Franco-regime censors. Pere Portabella (b. 1929, Barcelona) is a veteran Spanish filmmaker whose narrative features—rich in interludes, plot diversions, atmosphere, and unexpected synchronies between sight and sound—limn the avant-garde and expand the expressive potential of cinema. Portabella, who began his cinematic career as a producer of fiction films implicitly critical of General Francisco Franco, had his passport revoked when Luis Bunuel's Viridiana (1961), which he helped to make, "embarrassed" Spain at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962. When democracy returned to Spain, Portabella served as a senator in the Catalan government. However, throughout his various careers, Portabella continued to make cinema, investigating meaning in the moving image and flexing the notion of genre—particularly for horror films, fantasy films, and thrillers. MoMA first screened a Portabella work—Vampir Cuadecuc (1970)—on January 27 and 28, 1972, in its Cineprobe program. After a thirty-five year absence, the Department of Film is honored to welcome Portabella back to introduce the New York premiere of his recently completed The Silence before Bach (2007). Roundtable discussions will also be held at New York University, September 27–28. All films directed by Portabella. http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/061110/

随着小马谷春季游行的临近，韦斯特里尔为庆祝花季到来精心策划的计划面临威胁。这威胁一方面源于一只沉睡千年的龙被唤醒，另一方面来自即将举行的新公主加冕仪式。当公主花园里百花争艳，她的朋友们正为春季游行忙碌时，这一切动静惊醒了一只被钉住沉睡千年的龙，韦斯特里尔遭到了破坏。 传说龙被唤醒时，新公主就要加冕——但这将是谁的传奇故事呢？小马谷的居民们急切地期待着新公主加冕，同时他们也将从中领悟重要的道理：拥立新公主需要付出怎样的代价，真正的友谊又意味着什么。