These pages are all about Valencia's vibrant culture scene.

PALAU DE LES ARTS
Lucia di Lammermoor

Still time to catch this tragic drama by Gaetano Donizetti set on the moors of Scotland

23, 26, 29, 31 January and 3, 6, 9 February

MTV WINTER 13 FEB

MTV Winter at the City of Arts and Sciences. Arctic Monkeys headline this, the third MTV Winter Festival which is beamed live across the world. Free admission gets you not only the Arctic Monkeys, but the Mystery Jets, Lightspeed Champion, and Fuzzy White Casters!

PALAU DE LA MÚSICA DE VALENCIA.

XIV Festival of Flamenco at the Palau de la Música

30 January - Diego 'El Cigala'

31 January - a Night of Valencian Flamenco

14 February - Buika

19 February - Miguel Poveda.

NEED GOOD READING AND LISTENING? GO HERE FOR THE LATEST REVIEWS FROM
GOORU AND BABU
And A little plug for a great new book shop in Valencia - KandA - european books to buy and sell! click on the ad to the right for more info.

¡Guerra! by Jason Webster is out now - we have an exclusive interview with the author here

You want art? There are around 30 galleries and museums in the city. The excellent IVAM devoted to modern art, the Museo de Bellas Artes, a fine permanent collection and well staged exhibitions, the Bancaixa Gallery has a large permanent collection of Picasso etchings.

Go here for a list of the major galleries - all are open daily except monday - entrance fees vary but are not expensive and Sundays, all galleries are free.

Theatre your thing? There are four major theatre spaces in the city, an excellent Music Palace Palau de Música and the stunning Opera house masterpiece Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía by the celebrated Valencian Architect Calatrava. There is also a thriving café theatre scene (seasonal) and many of the smaller clubs have performance on a regular basis.
Sagunto - up the coast a bit has a roman amphitheatre and stages not only the classics but concerts as well.

Go here for a list of the major theatres and here for the clubs

Are you a movie fan? The Spanish love movies - there are cinemas all over town - mainly dubbed in Castellano, so you're going to have to learn the language if you want to see the blockbusters, although the Ciné Cité at Fuencarral (click their box top right to go to their site)in Campanar does show a handful of blockbuster films in Original Version each week. For arty films there are the excellent Albatross and Babel (click their box top right) cinemas which show their films in original version and the IVAC - Filmoteca.(click their box top right)The annua festival Cinema Joven takes place each June for one week, and tthe excellent Mostra de Valencia - the Mediterranean film festival happens around October each year, more here as they happen. The IVAC has a summer outdoor cinema in front of the Palau de Musica in the riverbed all the way through August, the programme will be here when it's published .

Is music your bag? There's a wealth of music here in Valencia for you to enjoy. From rock to folk to classical to brass bands to jazz and back again click here for the major venues.

Always got your face in a book? go here for reviews and the inspired monthly column from Gooru.

Fashion Victim or just love to read an excellent woman columnist? Anita Darling is here, and Barbara O'Neill is here, just for you.

AMERRIKA
Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle.Told with heartfelt humor by writer-director Cherien Dabis in her feature film debut, Amreeka is a universal journey into the lives of a family of immigrants and first-generation teenagers caught between their heritage and the new world in which they now live and the bittersweet search for a place to call home..

Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
Moore's latest film explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as the biggest robbery in the history of the USA - the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

NINE
Loosely inspired by Fellini's film "8½," this excellent musical movie focuses on a film director stuck in neutral as he tries to make a film while haunted by the demands of all the women in his life. The cast is fantastic and includes Daniel Day Lewis, Judie Dench, Kate Hudson, Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren.

A SERIOUS MAN
The story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. The atest from the wonderful Coen Brothers

EVERYBODY'S FINE
Robert De Niro as a widower who embarks on an impromptu road trip to reconnect with each of his grown children only to discover that their lives are far from picture perfect.

Valencia's
major rock and pop venues
This list does not aim to be definitive - just to give Valencia's main rock and pop music venues. If you would like to get in touch with us to request we add a venue or to report a broken link, please email us here
For venues outside Valencia , click here

Valencia's
major art galleries
and exhibition venues
This list does not aim to be definitive - just to give Valencia's major art exhibition spaces. If you would like to get in touch with us to request we add a venue or to report a broken link,please email us here
For venues outside Valencia , click here

Valencia's
major theatre and classical music venues
This list does not aim to be definitive - just to give Valencia's main theatre and classical music venues. If you would like to get in touch with us to request we add a venue or to report a broken link, please email us here
For venues outside Valencia , click here

Valencia's
Venues that show films in Original Version
This list does not aim to be definitive - just to give Valencia's main Original version Film venues. If you would like to get in touch with us to request we add a venue or to report a broken link, please email us here
For venues outside Valencia , click here

All content
©2007/2008
thisisvalencia.com
unless otherwise stated

CULTURE ARCHIVES

Josh Rouse Interview

Festival Veo 2006

Palau de les Arts opening

Andie McDowell in VLC

Anita Darling Archive

Live reviews 1

Live reviews 2

ALBATROS

INVICTUS
Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman star in this Clint Eastwood directed true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team, Francois Pienaar, to help unite their country.

THE HURT LOCKER
Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, winner of the 2008 Venice Film Festival SIGNIS Grand Prize, is a riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the militarys unrecognized heroes: the technicians of a bomb squad who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives in one of the worlds most dangerous places.

IN THE LOOP
From Armando Iannucci, the comic-genius behind The Day Today, Im Alan Partridge and the BAFTA award-winning The Thick Of It and starring Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Peter Capaldi and Steve Coogan, comes a hilarious and biting satire on British-US relations and the lunacy of War.

BABEL

CHERI
Michelle Pfeiffer teaches young man Cheri a few tricks in pre WWI Paris only to find hes offered a younger virgin wife. Directed by Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons / The Queen)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Maurice Sendaks classic book Where the Wild Things Are comes to the big screen in an adventure tale for every generation. Director: Spike Jonze

LOOKING FOR ERIC
Eric a football fanatic postman whose life is descending in to crisis receives some life coaching from the famously philosophical Eric Cantona.

IVAC/FILMOTECA

SAMUEL FULLER AND WERNER HERZOG CYCLES

Click the CINEMA links at top of page for times etc