The 47

The 47
Theatrical release poster
Catalan	El 47
Directed by	Marcel Barrena
Screenplay by	Marcel Barrena Alberto Marini
Produced by	Laura Fdez. Espeso Javier Méndez
Starring	Eduard Fernández Clara Segura Zoe Bonafonte Salva Reina Óscar de la Fuente Betsy Túrnez Vicente Romero Carlos Cuevas David Verdaguer
Cinematography	Isaac Vila
Edited by	Nacho Ruiz Capillas
Music by	Arnau Bataller
Production company	The Mediapro Studio
Distributed by	A Contracorriente Films
Release date	6 September 2024 (2024-09-06)
Running time	110 minutes[1]
Country	Spain
Languages	Catalan Spanish
Box office	€4.0 million

The 47 (Catalan: El 47) is a 2024 Spanish historical drama film directed by Marcel Barrena and written by Barrena and Alberto Marini. It stars Eduard Fernández alongside Clara Segura and Zoe Bonafonte, exploring the hijacking of a bus in 1978 Barcelona as a form of civil disobedience.

The film was released theatrically by A Contracorriente Films on 6 September 2024. It won five awards at the 39th Goya Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Salva Reina), and Best Supporting Actress (Segura).

Plot

The film takes place in Barcelona in 1978. Incensed by the contempt faced by impoverished Extremaduran and Andalusian immigrant communities in the city outskirts, bus driver Manolo Vital hijacks a vehicle of the 47 bus line, in order to debunk the local government's lie that buses could not reach the Torre Baró neighborhood.^[2][3][4]

Cast

Production

The screenplay was written by Marcel Barrena and Alberto Marini.^[8] The film is a The Mediapro Studio production.^[8] It had the participation of Movistar Plus+, RTVE, 3Cat, and Triodos Bank, the backing from ICEC and funding from ICO.^[9] It was shot in between June and July 2023.^[10] Shooting locations in the province of Barcelona included Plaça de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Hall, and the Torre Baró neighborhood.^[10]

Valeria Castro composed the film's main song, "El borde del mundo".^[11]

Release

Distributed by A Contracorriente Films, the film was released theatrically in Spain on 6 September 2024 in 175 screens.^[9][12][13] It grossed over €240,000 in its opening weekend, with the seventh-largest gross and second-best gross per screen ratio in the Spanish box office.^[13]

By February 2025, the film had grossed around €3.4 million.^[14] By March 2025, it had grossed around €4 million.^[15]

The film was released theatrically in Greece on 3 July 205 by Weird Wave and in Australia and New Zealand on 10 July 2025 by Palace Films.^[16] It was also sold in the United States and Canada (Myriad Pictures), Italy (Movies Inspired [it]), Poland (Mañana), and India (BookMyShow).^[17][18]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 10 critics' reviews are positive.^[19]

Blai Morell of Fotogramas rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, deeming it to be "a splendid film that deals about the neighborhood struggle as an engine of change in the search for the common good", highlighting the "spectacular" work delivered by the "entire" cast as the best thing about it.^[20]

Toni Vall of Cinemanía rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, considering it to be Barrena's best film, "a work of craftsmanship, everything [in it] exudes authenticity".^[21]

Philipp Engel of La Vanguardia, rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, declaring it a "good film, full of good intentions as it appeals to solidarity and civil movements" [rallying no other banner] "than that of just causes", while also pointing out that "it never ceases to be a conventional and predictable" story.^[22]

The film did not fully please the colleagues of Manolo Vital in neighborhood and political activism; they criticised a biased narrative in the film depicting Vital as a lone hero, shunning his membership in the Workers' Commissions (CC.OO.) and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC).^[23]

Accolades

See also

• List of Spanish films of 2024

References

External links

• The 47 at IMDb