Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude is a film we’ve spent a long time thinking about since we first saw it, and we’re thrilled to finally share it on the big screen thanks to the ICA and their brilliant Off Circuit strand.

Unflinchingly visceral and rigorously controlled, it offers an immersive portrait of star matador Andrés Roca Rey. Filmed almost entirely in medium shot, Serra’s camera fixes on Roca’s body and face as he moves between hotel rooms, minibuses, and the arena. Outside the ring, Roca appears distant and withdrawn; inside it, he becomes theatrical and grotesque, performing an exaggerated, ritualized masculinity sustained by the constant murmur of praise from his ever-present entourage.

What makes Afternoons of Solitude so compelling (and so difficult) is its refusal to offer moral reassurance. Serra stands back, letting us decide what it means to watch, to admire, or to recoil. As The New Yorker’s Richard Brody noted, Serra achieves a "unity, a synthesis, and a far-reaching vision" rarely seen in documentary. It isn’t an easy film, but it is a bracing, hypnotic and often bloody experience that demands to be seen in the dark of a cinema.

Winner of the Golden Shell at San Sebastián and recently named the #1 Film of the Year by Cahiers du Cinéma, as well as a top pick in Sight & Sound and Film Comment end of year lists, this is a work that has sparked debate and praise across the global film community.