This weekend has been a celebration of the majestic actress Carmen Maura thanks to the 2nd Spanish Film Festival at the Cine Lumiere Cinema in the Institut Francaise.

Spanish Films at the French Institut? As the programmer pointed out, Cine Lumiere celebrates all European cinema so why not? The festival features a short Maura retrospective - very short when you realise she has made over 100 films and they are showing 8! - but the highlight was an onstage interview on her career which Tall Paul and I were very happy to be in the audience for on Saturday. Despite having an interpreter on stage with her and the interviewer Carmen gamely answered as much as she could in English, wobbly as it was. For some odd reason I felt so proud of her for doing that! She looked absolutely ravishing in the flesh and received a great reception. All areas of her career were touched on and of course a lot of time was devoted to her working and personal relationship with Pedro Almodovar. From her debut in 1969 Carmen worked steadily but her partnership with Almodovar - 7 films spanning 1978 to 1988 - launched both careers into international recognition. Sadly the relationship proved too exacting for Carmen, she said WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN was the only film where she cried each day for real on set, and they parted on not-too-good terms. However this year saw them reunited with her performance in VOLVER and although she said they will never have the friendship they once had, their professional relationship is as strong as ever. Not that Carmen has needed the Almodovar seal of approval. Her career has soared since WOMEN ON THE VERGE and she has won in total 23 European acting awards - most for non-Pedro films. It was a real joy to see her as I have been a major fan since LAW OF DESIRE back in the late 1980s. When asked why Hollywood never beckoned she gave the perfect answer - she doesn't like Los Angeles! More seriously she knows that her 30+ years in European cinema would be wiped out and she would essentially have to rebuild an acting career for American cinema and why should she? Actresses her age in America complain there are no roles and she finds plenty in Europe. She also admitted her age proudly, she turned 61 the day before.

As I had booked a few tickets I was entitled to see one film free so plumped on Sunday afternoon for her 1990 film AY CARMELA! directed by Carlos Saura, based on a very popular Spanish play of a touring music-hall double act trapped behind enemy lines during the Spanish Civil War. Carmela (Maura) and Paulino (Andres Pajares) are released from jail on the condition they appear in the town's theatre performing their act which has been re-written by one of the occupying Italian Lieutenants for his troops as well as the Nationalists. Angry at the crude anti-Republican script, Carmela is also shocked to hear that the audience will also include captured Polish International Brigade soldiers who she befriended in the jail and who are likely to be executed the next morning. What is more important? To survive at all costs as Paulino urges or to remain true to her beliefs? Carmen's luminous performance won her four Best Actress Awards including Spain's Goya Award.

However even Carmen cannot save a film single-handed as was evident with the film from 2004, 25 DEGRES EN HIVER a lacklustre French comedy-drama which was billed bizarrely as "a screwball comedy". Agreed it had potential: a Belgian work-shy go-fer working for his brother's travel company has his life turned upside down when his car is used as a hideout by a Ukranian asylum seeker who escapes from being deported because she is desperate to track down her husband who has gone to ground. Can he keep his job while racing around helping the mysterious woman find her errant husband? Will he be helped or hindered by the addition of his little daughter and his Spanish mother (Maura)? Will any of this make him reflect on his own wife who has left to start a singing career in New York? Sadly the pace of the film is so leaden none of the questions seem to actually warrent the audience's continued interest, Carmen wrestles all she can out of the role of the mother - initially skeptical but slowly sympathising with the Ukranian's plight as she herself was an emigrant seeking a better life - but she is fighting a losing battle against the dull performances of Jacques Gamblin and Ingeborga Dapkunaite. There was a nice turn by Aleksandr Medvedev as the missing husband but he arrived too late in the film to revive much interest and was only there to provide the springboard for the obvious plot resolution.