Outside of Cornerhouse’s commendable Viva! season for a couple of weeks every year, and the occasional output of international stars like Almodovar, there’s generally very little chance to see even the best and most popular Spanish films in Manchester.

But the Instituto Cervantes is doing its best to address that problem with a series of screenings of some of the best contemporary Spanish cinema, ranging from drama to comedies, each Thursday at the Deansgate venue from 6.30pm.

Several films in the season are actually getting their UK premiere, they’re all subtitled and, best of all, the screenings are free! As they say, what’s not to like?

Tickets must be booked in advance from secman@cervantes.es or 0161 661 4201 and the films already booked include:

Apartment concierge Cesar believes he was born without the ability to be happy and so his self-appointed mission is to make life hell for everyone around him. Most of the tenants are easy to agitate, but when Clara proves to be harder than most, Cesar goes to creepy extremes.

Silvia is a young girl marked by a dark childhood. But when she reaches the age of 25, she decides to start over and to face people, feelings and emotions that keep her bound to the past.

In a town in the Basque country border, two families are involved in a bet, and so, unable to pull themselves out of the inertia of the society they live in, three young lovers find themselves trapped in an endless duel.

Groom-to-be Diego is ditched by his fiancée just days before the planned wedding. His madcap cousins, Julian and José Miguel, rally round as he looks set to go off the rails, and the trio plan a trip to their home town to help him recover.

After police inspector Santos Trinidad gets involved in a triplemurder, his own investigation has to help him find and eliminate the escaped witness who could incriminate him. Meanwhile, Judge Chacon, also investigating the triple murder, discovers that what seemed a simple case of a drugs deal gone wrong is actually something far more dangerous.