# La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1987 film)
*La casa de Bernarda Alba* is a 1987 Spanish drama film directed by Mario Camus, adapting [Federico García Lorca](https://www.edgepedia.org/federico-garcia-lorca)'s final play of the same name for the cinema. Irene Gutiérrez Caba plays Bernarda Alba, the widowed matriarch who imposes a punishing mourning regime on her five daughters, with [Ana Belén](https://www.edgepedia.org/ana-belen) as the youngest, Adela.[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651) • [2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) The film opened the Un certain regard section at the 40th Cannes Film Festival and premiered in Spain on 3 April 1987, but met a largely unfavorable critical response.[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) • [3](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / year | Mario Camus, 1987, Spain[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651) |
| Source | Lorca's last play, *La casa de Bernarda Alba* (dated 19 June 1936)[3](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709) • [4](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/relaciones-entre-el-cine-y-la-literatura-el-teatro-en-el-cine--0/html/ff16fcdc-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_11.html) |
| Screenplay | Mario Camus and Antonio Larreta[3](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709) |
| Spanish release | 3 April 1987, Madrid (Cines Palafox, Arlequín, La Vaguada, Peñalver)[3](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709) |
| Runtime | 106 minutes per the ICAA registry; other listings give 103 or 99 minutes[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651) • [5](https://cultura.cervantes.es/sidney/es/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba/113602) • [6](https://www.lavanguardia.com/peliculas-series/peliculas/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba-98997) |
| Spanish box office | 456,727.12 € from 253,763 admissions[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651) |
| Cannes | Opened the Un certain regard section at the 40th festival (1987)[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) |
| Rating | Not recommended for audiences under 13 (ICAA certification)[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651) |
## Spoilers
### Story
After the death of her second husband, Bernarda Alba subjects her five daughters to a discipline so severe that it amounts, in practice, to a burial in life. The appearance of a man, Pepe el Romano, who seems to intend to marry Angustias, the eldest daughter, sets off a chain of events that ends in an unexpected and tragic finale.[7](https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/cine-de-siempre/casa-bernarda-alba/17225541/) Angustias, the only daughter of Bernarda's first husband, has inherited a fortune, which is why the much younger Pepe courts her while secretly loving Adela.[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html)
## Production
**A Ley Miró project.** The film was made under Real Decreto 3304/1983, known as the "Ley Miró" after Pilar Miró, the Director General of Cinematography who drove it through. The law offered advance subsidies intended to raise the quality of Spanish cinema, favoring large productions and literary adaptations; *La casa de Bernarda Alba* belongs to that current of literary cinema, alongside Camus's own *La colmena* and *Los santos inocentes*.[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) • [8](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-03-11/insulto-o-adaptacion-por-que-las-peliculas-se-siguen-llevando-tan-mal-con-las-novelas.html)
The production, by Paraiso Films, had a budget of 154 million pesetas, half of it a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture, with Jaime Borrel as producer. Shooting began in mid-November 1986 in Antequera, in the province of Málaga, where the funeral scenes for Antonio Buendía, Bernarda's husband, were filmed; the rest of the shoot continued in the surroundings of Madrid. At the time Camus was 51 years old and had 19 films behind him.[9](https://elpais.com/diario/1986/12/23/cultura/535676415_850215.html)
**Casting.** Camus chose Irene Gutiérrez Caba for Bernarda by express decision, and selected the actresses playing the daughters for their physical resemblance to one another.[10](https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210919/cine-literario-mario-camus/2171803.shtml) The roles were Ana Belén as Adela, Enriqueta Carballeira as Angustias, Florinda Chico as Poncia, Vicky Peña as Martirio, Aurora Pastor as Magdalena, and Mercedes Lezcano as Amelia, with Rosario García Ortega as María Josefa.[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) • [11](https://tv.apple.com/es/movie/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba/umc.cmc.43wytq0svj9hbxbi8q4wxtkn7) Fernando Arribas was the director of photography and Ángel Álvarez composed the music; José María Biurrun edited.[3](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709)
## Adaptation choices
The screenplay by Camus and Antonio Larreta keeps close to the play. One change Camus described during the shoot was the presence of Pepe el Romano among the crowd, a minimal modification of an original in which the man never appears on stage.[9](https://elpais.com/diario/1986/12/23/cultura/535676415_850215.html) The film also redistributes the action through the spaces of the house, the patio, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms, sewing room, and stable, giving more variety of dramatic settings than the stage text allows.[4](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/relaciones-entre-el-cine-y-la-literatura-el-teatro-en-el-cine--0/html/ff16fcdc-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_11.html) The critic Ángel Fernández-Santos noted that the film opens and closes with the passage of a curtain and assumes its condition of filmed theater.[12](https://elpais.com/diario/1989/04/07/radiotv/607903201_850215.html)
## Reception
The film represented Spain at the 1987 Cannes festival, opening the Un certain regard parallel section, but the Cannes reviews were not enthusiastic, and the Spanish reception was colder still. Fotogramas judged that fidelity to the original text became true reverence, making it harder for the results to work as cinema. In EL PAÍS, Ángel Fernández-Santos called the film a "misión imposible", criticizing Ana Belén's performance and the screenplay, and arguing that Bernarda and Adela, the sharpest pieces of Lorca's tragic mechanism, emerged as the film's most diffuse characters.[2](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html) A later EL PAÍS piece was kinder on one point: it credited the film with real category in its claustrophobic atmosphere and its ensemble of actresses, with special mention for Irene Gutiérrez Caba as a superb Bernarda, and for Fernando Arribas's cinematography.[12](https://elpais.com/diario/1989/04/07/radiotv/607903201_850215.html)
Commercially the film did not recover its cost: Spanish admissions totaled 253,763 and gross receipts 456,727.12 euros.[1](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651)
## Place in Camus's career and later standing
The film belongs to the literary strand of Mario Camus's career, which ran from [Ignacio Aldecoa](https://www.edgepedia.org/ignacio-aldecoa), Camilo José Cela, and [Miguel Delibes](https://www.edgepedia.org/miguel-delibes) to Lorca, and produced his best-known adaptations, *Fortunata y Jacinta*, *La colmena*, and *Los santos inocentes*.[10](https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210919/cine-literario-mario-camus/2171803.shtml) A 1989 trade review called it a faithful adaptation whose foundation is the interplay of its leading actresses.[13](https://ibdigital.uib.es/greenstone/sites/localsite/collect/premsaForanaMallorca/index/assoc/Perlas_y/_Cuevas_/1989_mes/02_n0722.dir/Perlas_y_Cuevas_1989_mes02_n0722.pdf) A scholarly survey of Spanish literary adaptations notes that Camus's version remained, up to the time of that study, the only cinematic version of the play.[4](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/relaciones-entre-el-cine-y-la-literatura-el-teatro-en-el-cine--0/html/ff16fcdc-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_11.html) The film has since circulated on Spanish streaming platforms, including RTVE Play's "Cine de siempre" catalog and FlixOlé.[7](https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/cine-de-siempre/casa-bernarda-alba/17225541/) • [6](https://www.lavanguardia.com/peliculas-series/peliculas/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba-98997)
## References
1. [CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA, LA, ICAA Film Database](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=917651)
2. [Las mejores (y peores) veces que Lorca 'visitó' Cannes, EL PAÍS ICON](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-05-04/de-un-osado-documental-en-los-cincuenta-a-una-con-robert-pattinson-en-los-2000-las-cuatro-veces-que-lorca-visito-cannes.html)
3. [La casa de Bernarda Alba, Adaptaciones de la literatura española en el cine español, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/alece/registro_pelicula/?id=1709)
4. [José Luis Sánchez Noriega, "Un modelo teórico-práctico de análisis de adaptación cinematográfica de textos teatrales: La casa de Bernarda Alba", Relaciones entre el cine y la literatura](https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/relaciones-entre-el-cine-y-la-literatura-el-teatro-en-el-cine--0/html/ff16fcdc-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_11.html)
5. [La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Instituto Cervantes de Sídney](https://cultura.cervantes.es/sidney/es/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba/113602)
6. [La casa de Bernarda Alba (1987), La Vanguardia](https://www.lavanguardia.com/peliculas-series/peliculas/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba-98997)
7. [Cine de siempre: La casa de Bernarda Alba, RTVE Play](https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/cine-de-siempre/casa-bernarda-alba/17225541/)
8. [¿Insulto o adaptación? Por qué las películas se siguen llevando tan mal con las novelas, EL PAÍS ICON](https://elpais.com/icon/2026-03-11/insulto-o-adaptacion-por-que-las-peliculas-se-siguen-llevando-tan-mal-con-las-novelas.html)
9. [Mario Camus lleva al cine 'La casa de Bernarda Alba', de Federico García Lorca, EL PAÍS (23 December 1986)](https://elpais.com/diario/1986/12/23/cultura/535676415_850215.html)
10. [El cine literario de Mario Camus, RTVE (19 September 2021)](https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210919/cine-literario-mario-camus/2171803.shtml)
11. [La casa de Bernarda Alba, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/es/movie/la-casa-de-bernarda-alba/umc.cmc.43wytq0svj9hbxbi8q4wxtkn7)
12. [Mujeres, EL PAÍS radiotv (7 April 1989)](https://elpais.com/diario/1989/04/07/radiotv/607903201_850215.html)
13. [Perlas y Cuevas, núm. 722 (February 1989)](https://ibdigital.uib.es/greenstone/sites/localsite/collect/premsaForanaMallorca/index/assoc/Perlas_y/_Cuevas_/1989_mes/02_n0722.dir/Perlas_y_Cuevas_1989_mes02_n0722.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on stage plays*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license