A sublime documentary from Albert Serra, AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE follows celebrated Peruvian matador Andrés Roca Rey through the charged ritual of modern bullfighting. Filmed across Spain’s grandest arenas, Serra captures the ceremony and cruelty of the corrida with his patient, painterly gaze. Moving between the quiet solitude of hotel rooms and the ecstatic violence of the ring, the Catalan filmmaker crafts an unforgettable portrait of man and beast, the mythic and the mortal, theatre and death. At once a harrowing ritual and a hypnotic fantasy, AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE affirms Serra as one of contemporary cinema’s most fearless and incisive image-makers.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024
Official Selection, Golden Shell for Best Film

New York Film Festival 2024
Official Selection

Tokyo International Film Festival 2024
World Focus

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma 2024
Essentials

Visions du Réel 2025
Highlights

Hong Kong International Film Festival 2025
Masterclass

DETAILS

Aspect Ratio
1.85:1

Picture
Colour

Sound
5.1

Screening Format
DCP

Original Language Title
Tardes de Soledad

REVIEWS

“This is a major work from a richly maturing filmmaker, of a piece with his recent fiction features in its use of languid repetition and sensory saturation to pull the audience into something approaching a discomfiting dream state.” — Guy Lodge, Variety

““This new documentary by Albert Serra is one of the most transfixing I’ve seen in a while… With its blend of intimacy and majesty, of breathless action and overarching monumentality, he achieves a unity, a synthesis, and a far-reaching vision.” — Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“It’s a remarkable, multifarious work, and despite the controversial subject matter, it’s probably the closest thing that Serra has ever made to a crossover mainstream feature." — David Jenkins, Little White Lies

"Rarely have I seen a film that has combined the riveting and the repellent to such memorably strange effect." — Zachary Barnes, The Wall Street Journal

"Muscular and ferocious." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

FURTHER READING

The Plasticity of Blood: Albert Serra on “Afternoons of Solitude”

The Catalan filmmaker’s San Sebastián prizewinner locates a paradoxical pageantry in bullfighting. — Ela Bittencourt, via Mubi.

“You Cannot Project Your Desire”: Albert Serra on “Afternoons of Solitude”, Bullfighting and Kristen Stewart

With Afternoons of Solitude, Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra returns to Spain for his first documentary. — Ryan Akler-Bishop, via The Film Stage.

EXTRAS