Mar Diestro-Dópido
Mar Diestro-Dópido is a film critic based in London. She is a regular contributor to, and researcher for, Sight & Sound, and has also written for publications including Little White Lies, Dazed & Confused and Vertigo, as well as various academic books and journals.
She is currently completing a PhD on film festivals, and is also a qualified and active art and media translator.
Online articles
Saura’s flamenco flights Q&A report
Carlos Saura’s 1980s ‘flamenco trilogy’, now released in a set of bare-bones DVDs, constitutes some of the boldest dance films ever made. As Mar Diestro-Dópido reports, on a recent visit to London the director provided all the background you need. Web exclusive, May 2012
The new new Argentine cinema
London Film Festival blog
Mar Diestro-Dópido on six new films that suggest the rise of a new generation of Argentine filmmakers forging their own identity. Web exclusive, October 2011
Correspondences: Jonas Mekas, José Luis Guerín, Jafar Panahi
London Film Festival blog
Mar Diestro-Dópido finds unexpected dialogue and moving kinship between Mekas and Guerín’s visual ‘letter’ exchanges Correspondence and Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s defiant diary This Is Not a Film.
Web exclusive, October 2011
Pere Portabella: from Buñuel to Lorca Interview
Mar Diestro-Dópido talks to an elusive Catalan film legend. Web exclusive, October 2011
Critics’ inspirations
Women on Film series
Our female writers offer thumbnail descriptions of their own film-world inspirations.
Web exclusive, April 2011
Hidden visionaries: 50 years of the ‘other’ Spanish cinema Feature
Mar Diestro-Dópido picks out three blazing highlights of a touring exposition of Spanish experimental discoveries.
Web exclusive, April 2011
Luis García Berlanga, 1921-2010 Obituary
Irreverent, darkly comic Spanish writer-director known for his satirical critiques of Francoism.
Web exclusive, March 2011
IndieLisboa: the new school
Festival report
Mar Diestro-Dópido finds a thriving IndieLisboa brimming with young international talent.
Web exclusive, May 2010