Spanish Films

One of Spanish Cinema Now’s most frequent and popular guests, Ventura Pons returns with two of his strongest works in years. The first, Barcelona (A Map), is based on a play by Catalan playwright Lluisa Cunillé. The owners of a ramshackle downtown apartment building, Rosa (the long-awaited return to the screen of Nuria Espert, a legend of Spanish theater) and Ramon, call together their tenants. Ramon, formerly a doorman at the opera, announces that he is dying, and that he and Rosa would like to spend their last days alone—so everybody has to leave. The reactions of the tenants are varied and surprising, revealing secrets about their relations with each other as well as with their landlords. Barcelona is never far from the center of Ventura Pons’ concerns in many of his films; here, he effectively transforms the fading world of Rosa and Ramon into a mirror for the city’s rapidly changing life and sensibility.

Victor and Laura, a film director and his assistant, travel to a small seaside town on the Galician coast. Their intention is to record its beauty––not only the landscape and people but also a more evanescent beauty embedded in small everyday actions, gestures and things encountered. But they just cannot seem to fulfill their ambitious goal of “catching life” with the camera. They decide to hand over their equipment and footage to the local children who, they hope, could better see, relate to and capture this enchanting atmosphere. What results is a documentation of the everyday life and beauty of the town as seen from the playful, inquisitive perspective of the children, and a film that moves back and forth between fiction and documentary using the fragile beauty of a butterfly—beauty that is fleeting, always out of grasp—as the driving metaphor.

Ana (impressive newcomer Manuela Vellés) lives with her father in a cave in Ibiza, supporting herself by selling her colorful paintings to tourists. After a French woman, Justine (Charlotte Rampling), invites her to move to an artists’ commune in Madrid, Ana finds herself in the capital, guarding a terrifying secret: she has visions that she can neither predict nor understand. Her search for an answer will take her both halfway around the globe—and to places inside her she never knew existed.

As in his Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Julio Medem creates an enormous fresco of a story, in which the connections between characters and events are more often ruled by poetic rather than narrative language. Made as a kind of homage to his own sister Ana, who died in 2000 and whose paintings appear in the film, Chaotic Ana is a sumptuous, sensuous work that only Medem, Spain’s most adventurous cinematic auteur, could have conceived.

After he wins the greatest prize in the history of television––more than 3 million Euros worth of goods and property––Martin Circo’s (Leonardo Sbaraglia) seemingly normal life as a respected professor of economics spirals into a Kafka-esque nightmare. With all the hidden taxes and penalties, he is shocked to learn that he simply cannot afford to be a millionaire. Despite a desperate attempt to rid himself of all his winnings, he is pulled deeper and deeper into the jungle of debt and tax bureaucracy. Aware that his life is spinning out of control, Martin seeks the advice of Edmundo Figueroa (Chete Lera), an extravagant, dissident economist who has his own remedies for the violence and brutality of the market economy. An impressive debut feature, Contestant is a witty, quick-paced critique of consumer-capitalist society, impeccably constructed and filled with jet-black humor.

Andalusian director Santi Amodeo follows on the success of his impressive debut Astronauts with this affecting portrait of Samuel (Juan José Ballesta , the fine young actor from El Bola and 7 Virgins), an 18-year-old suffering from a rare neurological condition, trying to navigate the traps and problems of young adulthood while struggling to function normally on a physical level. After spending a rare night out on the town with his cousin, Samuel wakes up in the back of a truck parked in Madrid—where, like it or not, a new life awaits him. Amodeo effectively creates the sense of Samuel as a young man who appears normal but who really is in a world of his own. His relationships in Madrid ––especially with Consuelo (Adriana Ugarte), a young woman as disoriented in her own way as he is, and Angelito, an Alzheimer’s victim beautifully played by veteran Manuel Alexandre ––are rendered with great delicacy and without sentimentality.

A charming, delicate tale about the various ways people deal with loss, The Education of Fairies begins as Nicolás (a wonderful performance by Argentine actor Ricardo Darín) meets Ingrid (French actress Irène Jacob) and her young son Raúl (Víctor Valdivia) on an airplane heading to Barcelona. Ingrid is clearly the woman he has been waiting for all his life, and Raúl is the son he’s never had. In no time, they are married and living in a beautiful house. Nicolas forms a very tight bond with Raúl, spending long hours telling him about the world and the special race of fairies whose job it is to protect it and make things right. Then, when things surprisingly change in their lives, Raúl expects those very fairies to make their appearance. Darín and Jacob (The Double Life of Veronique) work beautifully together, but the revelation here is child actor Valdivia, who manages to make Darín’s transitions between his fantasy world and the world in which he and his parents live both convincing and poignant.

A man drives up to a bus stop on a chilly winter night, lets a dog out of his car and drives away. The three witnesses waiting at the bus stop are Mila (Mercedes Sampietro), a teacher just returning to her job after a year’s leave of absence; Valeria (Aina Clotet), an aspiring musician in love with her professor; and Celso (Alex Brendemühl), a security guard in a department store having problems making ends meet. 53 Winter Days follows the lives of all three in the aftermath of the incident. Gemma Ventura’s screenplay never has these characters cross paths again, yet over time, the development of their stories offers a series of provocative rhymes and resonances. Judith Colell’s fine debut feature offers an affecting portrait of a society whose outward calm and material well-being hide the currents of anxiety coursing just below the surface of everyday life.

This touching portrait of flamenco singer/ dancer/actress Lola Flores, one of the most popular Spanish performers of the 20th century, begins by recounting her childhood in Jerez in the 1930s. Fascinated by the flamenco dancing and singing of her gypsy neighbors, Flores soon becomes their apprentice and, though only eight years old, vows to dedicate the rest of her life to becoming a great bailaora. Relentless in the pursuit of her dream, she submits to a grueling training regime with the greatest flamenco masters of her day, and makes her first public performance at 13. The film chronicles her ascent to stardom, as well as her marriage to Antonio González, “El Pescaílla,” brilliantly capturing the dark, repressive atmosphere of Franco’s dictatorship. Director Miguel Hermoso and screenwriter Antonio Onetti play down the glamour of Lola even at the height of her popularity, focusing instead on the extraordinary hard work and dedication she constantly needed to get to and stay at the top. Actress Gala Évora gives herself over totally to her incarnation of Lola; the choreography is by the great Cristina Hoyos.

Icíar Bollaín - whose powerful feature Take My Eyes won just about every major Goya award, including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress – returns with this engaging look at the work and lives of three female private investigators. Ines (Maria Vazquez) is working undercover at a large multinational concern, ostensibly to weed out corruption but actually to report on workers’ efforts to unionize. Eva (Najwa Nimri), recently back at work after maternity leave, struggles to juggle her case load with family life, when she accidentally discovers a secret her partner has long kept from her. Carmen (Nuria González), investigating a case of adultery, starts reflecting on her own loveless marriage. Aided by three standout performances, Bollaín creates exceptionally rich portraits of these women, neither eroticizing their professional lives nor diminishing the importance of their personal ones.

An outrageous, very contemporary musical comedy, Scandalous is the first feature by Alvaro Begines, a founding member of the comedy troupe “Don’t Step on Me Because I’m Wearing Sandals.” In one day, Luis (Antonio Dechent) loses all the women in his life. His wife, feeling unappreciated, leaves, eventually finding herself in a Buddhist monastery. His daughter decides to test her boyfriend’s love for her, while his mother (Lola Herrera, one of the great divas of the Spanish stage) hooks up with a couple of squatters. After his own efforts to track them down fail, Luis calls in the services of a rather singular detective who goes by the auspicious name Manolete (Manuel Morón). The often madcap action is punctuated by song, which the characters lip-synch with great intensity. Scandalous is a rousing good time, with some pointed observations about family, love and sex in today’s Spain.

When Carles Bosch, director of the Oscar®-nominated Balseros, went to visit a friend in a Madrid-area jail, he was stunned at what was going on there: a full-blown karaoke competition for the inmates. Among the participants of the 2005 Festival of Song that Bosch went on to film are Adalberto, a gay Argentinean whose grandmother thinks he’s on a cruise; Rudolf, a Lithuanian incarcerated for forgery; Gardoqui, a former drummer for a well-known ‘80s rock band; and Arturo, a Spanish roma (gypsy) with a wife and three children. They and the other competitors literally sing their hearts out, putting extraordinary expression and emotion into their renditions of popular love songs as they create brief moments in which their individual lives and dreams shine through. For over a year, Bosch followed the stories of his subjects, even traveling to distant points around the globe to seek out the men and women to whom the prisoners’ plaintive love songs are addressed. Despite the film’s setting in a prison and the hard-luck lives of its subjects, Septembers is a joy to watch, a true celebration of the power of love.

Angela (Maribel Verdú), hoping to visit her ailing father, sets off to her hometown with her son in tow. She arrives too late, and her father’s long-time girlfriend, Charo (Blanca Portillo), explains that the old man left mountains of debt that she hopes to cover by selling off their business: a local billiards hall, complete with seven regulation-size tables. An idea occurs to Angela: Why not take over the business and try to turn it around? Gracia Querejeta’s warmest, loosest film yet, Seven Billiards Tables is a perfect vehicle for showing her great talent for creating richly detailed environments, demimondes that operate by their own rules and conventions. Our guides to this particular world are Tuerto (Enrique Villen) and Jacinto (Ramon Barea), two faithful denizens of the billiards halls only too eager to show Angela the ropes. Querejeta and co-writer David Planell shared the prize for Best Screenplay with John Sayles at the 2007 San Sebastian Film Festival.

Spain in the 16th century. Theresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (Paz Vega), the intelligent and attractive daughter of a nobleman from Avila, refuses to accept what’s expected of her — namely, marriage to a well-to-do gentleman. Instead, much to the surprise of those around her, she enters a cloistered convent of the Carmelite order. But finding that the privileged young women who entered as novitiates often continue with the lifestyles they enjoyed outside, Theresa founds her own convent with the help of her benefactor Guimara de Ulloa (Leonor Watling). Meanwhile, the visions that began appearing to Theresa during an illness become more frequent. She begins writing religious texts that speak of a mystical yet passionate union with Chris t— and which soon attract the attention of The Inquisition. The life of St. Theresa de Avila has inspired artists from Rubens to Bernini, not to mention innumerable religious commentators on her work. Ray Loriga, aided by a graceful, subtle performance by Vega, finds the woman behind the image of the saint and mystic, giving her efforts and struggles a strikingly contemporary resonance.

Director of several internationally acclaimed short films, Félix Viscarret easily makes the transition to features with this offbeat, delicately observed tale that swept the major prizes at this year’s Spanish national film festival in Malaga. Benito Lacunza (Alberto San Juan) is a mediocre trumpet player eking out a living when he gets word that his father has died. Back home, he reconnects with his brother Lalo, a sculptor and former alcoholic who has struggled to get straight. Lalo is planning to marry Nines, which Benito is against — until he meets Nines’ daughter Ainara (Violeta Rodriguez), an introverted child with whom Benito creates a most unusual friendship.

Viscarret elegantly captures the feeling of small-town life, with its suspicions, jealousies and sense that everyone knows everybody else’s business. San Juan is excellent as Benito: just the right combination of big-city snobbery and barely concealed vulnerability. In her first major role, Rodriguez is a revelation.

Named “Revelation of the Year” by FIPRESCI, the international association of film critics, Yo is a taut, unsettling drama about the loss of identity, set in a tranquil village in Majorca. Hans (Alex Brendemühl, who co-wrote the film) is a German who arrives one day looking for the house of a rich German long settled on the island. He has come to replace the previous handyman, who departed in such a hurry that he left behind his clothes and meager possessions. But did he just leave? Nobody seems to know what happened to him, although some of the locals are convinced he is coming back. Using the simplest of cinematic means, debut director Rafa Cortés creates a palpable atmosphere of constant suspicion and doubt. Looks, gestures, even objects seem to carry some hidden meaning that Hans struggles to decipher.

A little calf is born. Shaky at first, it nonetheless seems like it might survive—unlike so many other animals born in Valle Negrón. The once spectacular bit of paradise includes a now 30-year-old coal-fired plant. Area inhabitants attribute the increase of a wide variety of health problems to the frequent rain of ashes and other waste products, as well as the suspected poisoning of water and soil. But for others, the plant represents their livelihood as the region’s chief employer.

When Ferguson, a Scot writing a travel guide, gets stuck in a village within sight of the plant, he finds himself getting involved in the divisive struggle. Winner of the Toyota Earth Prize for best environmental film at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, Ashes from the Sky is an engaging drama that examines the compromises and consequences made over environmental concerns as they affect people’s everyday lives.

The Secretary General of the United Nations makes an important announcement:

A giant meteor is headed towards Earth, and scientists believe its impact—which should come in about three days — will destroy all life on the planet. Stark fear and chaos take hold of the world. But for Alejandro (Victor Clavijo), a frustrated young man who lives with his mother in the isolated village of Laguna, the impending end inspires him to spend his last days shut away, getting drunk and listening to his favorite music.

All is well, until a stranger arrives and unsettles the town. First-time director F. Javier Gutiérrez masterfully creates the atmosphere of a world literally waiting for its own destruction; facing the inevitable end, what should you still care about? Before the Fall is another fine example of the new breed of intelligently made, provocative genre films found in recent Spanish cinema.

“Casual day” is said to be a business technique imported from the U.S.: companies establish a day during the work week in which the employees are encouraged to “be themselves” and wear jeans, engage in a group activity or just let down their guard. For the firm led by Jose Antonio (Juan Diego, always fine), this means a full-blown retreat in the countryside, much to the chagrin of the company’s newest employee, Ruy (Javier Rios), the boyfriend of the boss’s daughter.

He isn’t sure he wants to be doing any of this — especially after he interacts with fellow employees Cholo (Luis Tosar), Arozamena (Alex Angulo) or the staff psychologist (Alberto San Juan). Soon, long-held grudges and everyday office treacheries rise to the surface. Casual Day is a pitch-black comedy about the hilariously brutal implementation of sensitivity techniques.

Twenty-something Bianca (Silvia Abascal) excitedly reveals to her aunt, Barbara (Almodóvar favorite Verónica Forqué), that she’s met the man of her dreams—only soon after meeting him, he disappeared. Taken by the real-estate savvy Barbara to see a house that’s up for sale, Bianca notices a framed portrait of her beloved on the mantle. Ah yes, explains the older couple that owns the house, that’s a picture of our son, who unfortunately is dead.

This hilarious, often outrageous thriller is a tribute to some of the odder haunts of Madrid, spinning a wild plot that eventually includes an insecure actress, a secretary who claims to have ESP, and an increasingly furious husband. Costume designer Pepe Reyes received a special award at this year’s Málaga Film Festival for the film’s eye-popping wardrobe.

One of Spain’s finest directors, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón offers a provocative, very personal take on the current conflict in the Basque region. Radical commando leader Josu Jon (Oscar Jaenada) is shot during a confrontation with the police. The bullet, lodged in his left frontal lobe, doesn’t kill him, but when he wakes from his coma in a prison hospital, he has absolutely no memory of his past. Francesca, an Italian student working on his case, becomes fascinated by her patient, but she is unsure how much Josu Jon should remember about his past—or how much he wants to.

In interviews, Gutiérrez Aragón has spoken of the tendency in the Basque region to simply “look away,” to turn from the undercurrent of violence and threats that haunts society there. Everyone’s Invited explores the corrosive consequences of this willful ignorance.

Quim (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is driving through a remote, mountainous region on his way to work things out with his estranged girlfriend when he goes to use the men’s room at a gas station and his eyes meet Bea’s (Maria Valverde). After a quick tryst, Quim discovers that his wallet’s been stolen, and he sets out after the woman—when a sniper suddenly shoots out his motor.

López-Gallego’s crisp thriller keeps you continuously on edge, shifting gears along with Quim as you come to yet to another idea about what’s really going on. The ravishing mountain locations, so majestic when first seen, are soon transformed into a labyrinth in which danger is lurking behind every rock and tree.

Txomin Garay (Carmelo Romerio) left the constant political tension of the Basque region ten years ago for a new life in Argentina. After learning that his estranged brother is dying, Txomin returns with his family for a visit. But to his chagrin, Txomin discovers that the passions and divisions that had driven him away have, if anything, become even worse, and moreover, they’ve infected a whole new, younger generation, including his nephew Gaizka (Juan Jose Ballesta).

Txomin uses their shared passion for Basque pelota, a version of handball, to establish a relationship with the young man, only to be rebuffed and called a traitor for having left. Meanwhile, Txomin’s daughter Ane begins her own relationship with Gaizka, causing her to wonder about her identity and relationship to her homeland. Few films have offered as intimate a portrait of the ongoing Basque question. Gorka Merchán, working from a screenplay by Iñaki Mendiguren, brings the region’s conflict down to the family level, showing how it can even divide brother from brother.

Sent back to prison after participating in a robbery, Isa (Veronica Echegui) joins in a theater workshop organized by the warden (Candela Peña). Amidst the everyday brutality that defines prison life, the workshop becomes both a refuge and a free zone for these women to express themselves in ways they never thought possible. But for Isa—who demonstrates a real talent for acting—the drug addiction that brought her back to jail is never far away.

Produced by the Almodóvar brothers’ El Deseo shingle, My Prison Yard goes beyond the concentration on physical and emotional violence of the typical prison film to offer a series of finely detailed portraits of a group of women looking for second chances.

A new entry in Spain’s thriving documentary tradition, Juan Vicente Córdoba’s fascinating Night Flowers focuses on the history and evolution of El Pozo del Tío Raimundo, one of numerous shanty towns that sprang up in the late ’40s and ’50s as rural families flocked to Spanish cities. The film chronicles the town and especially the activities of Father Llanos, a so-called “red priest” who administered to the inhabitants’ spiritual needs and, perhaps even more crucially, instilled in them a passion for achieving freedom and fair treatment.

Working over many years, helping to create a new sense of self-worth and commitment, Father Llanos set out to help change the world. Night Flowers examines the results of this process, and the memories of the original inhabitants regarding their own and the town’s transformation.

Santiago Zannou makes an impressive feature film debut with this fascinating tour of Barcelona’s lively and growing hip-hop scene. Afflicted since childhood with paralysis on one side of his body, Enrique (Juan Manuel Montillo)—known to everyone as Cuajo—has a single dream: to make it in the world of music. Together with his friend Adolfo, he attempts to set up a studio while gathering some of the newest, freshest talents around.

One-Armed Trick features some of the hottest stars of Spanish rap—among them Elio Sagues, Ovone Candela and La Mala Rodriguez. The screenplay is loosely based on Montillo’s life; he is better known as El Langui, lead singer of La Excepcion, recently voted the best Spanish-language rappers on MTV.

Silvia Munt, one of Spain’s finest actresses, makes an impressive directorial debut with Pretexts, a film Munt says was “written by and for women” and for which she was named best director at this year’s Málaga Film Festival.

Viena (Munt) is a theater director about to embark on her most ambitious production. Her husband Daniel (Ramon Madaula) is a doctor in a geriatric clinic. The couple might be in love, except that they can’t stand each other; each lives intensely in a world the other can barely enter. To fill the void, Viena turns to her lead actor Ricardo (Francesc Garrido), whose role in both the play and in Viena’s life keeps slipping between fiction and reality. For Daniel, there’s Eva (Laia Marull), a pretty nurse who expresses a connection and compassion for her patients that’s the opposite of Daniel’s clinical detachment.

The screenplay, written by Munt with Eva Baeza, offers intricate parallels and resonances between these complex, contradictory and very contemporary lives.

Actor Tristán Ulloa (Sex and Lucia, Mensaka) teamed up with his brother David to direct this taut, unsettling look at the secrets that drive a family apart.

Young Sergio’s adoptive mother Julia (Elvira Minguez, best actress winner at the 2007 Málaga Film Festival) receives pornographic love letters, which lead Alfredo (Nancho Novo), Sergio’s father, to suspect she’s having an affair. Alfredo hides the truth of his most recent medical checkup from the family, while Sergio’s sister tries to sort out the range of attractions she feels for her peers. As for Sergio, soon after his grandmother dies he becomes convinced that he can actually see ghosts.

Adapted by Tristán from the novel by Santiago Roncagliolo, Pudor—a Spanish word that translates to modesty or shyness but is also related to the Latin putor, stench—reveals the vast emotional distances that separate even close relatives who live together. The directors create connections between each character’s individual story and secrets using a vibrant, largely hand-held camera.

Recent university graduate Marc doesn’t know the next step he should take in his life. Practically on a whim, he heads off to the Costa Brava to live with his grandmother. Marc has plenty of time to observe and comment on the world in his new job renting out jet skis to tourists. But when his grandmother falls sick, he has to face up to some hard decisions.

This quirky, sensitive coming-of-age film is distinguished by refreshingly low-key performances and an assured visual aesthetic, tracing one young man’s passage to adulthood while capturing the rhythms and rituals of a popular tourist town. Pere Vilà joins the ranks of the continually impressive new generation of Catalan filmmakers.

In the years immediately following the death of Franco, the new taste for liberty in Spain found cinematic expression in a number of increasingly risqué sex comedies that flaunted former, regime-imposed limits and regulations. Actresses Sandra (Candela Peña), Lina (Goya Toledo) and Eva (Mar Flores) come from different backgrounds but take the same expressway into Spain’s future when they perform in this wave of cine del destape—literally “uncovered films,” symbolizing some idea of modernity for “backwards” Spain.

With echoes of Saturday Night Fever and Boogie Nights, Rated-R presents a dynamic portrait of a society undergoing a historic transition, as three women celebrate modernization without guarding themselves against men who have their own ideas as to what modernization means.

A box office smash in Spain, [REC] follows television news reporter Angela and her cameraman Pablo as they shoot in a firehouse for a reality show called When You’re Asleep. The routine assignment takes a surprising turn when two firemen are dispatched to rescue an elderly lady trapped in her apartment in a high-rise building. With Angela and Pablo in tow, the firemen break down the woman’s door and discover that she has a craving for human flesh. Angela tells Pablo to keep the tape rolling, and starts interviewing the apartment’s tenants as they anxiously await the invasion of the flesh-eaters.

Reminiscent of early Cronenberg in its deft blending of offbeat humor and real shocks, [REC] breathes new life into a tried-and-true horror tale. (It was re-made and released by Hollywood this October as Quarantine.)

Peering out over a lush forest through his binoculars, Hector (Karra Elejalde) sees a near-naked woman running frantically. When he goes over to investigate, a scissor-wielding maniac attacks him. His escape takes him into mysterious, fortress-like building that turns out to be a research center. The scientist who seems to be manning the center by himself tells Hector he can hide inside a sleek plastic pod—which he claims is a time machine.

Timecrimes is another wonderful example of the inventive, intelligent use of genre formats found in some of the best recent Spanish films. Vigalondo, who also acts in the film, builds the intrigue gradually but inexorably, introducing new levels of complexity to his plot just when you think you’ve got it all figured out.

A freak accident knocks out Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann) on his first day as a prison guard. When he wakes, he discovers that the inmates have taken over the penitentiary, and his only way to survive is to join the uprising, led by Mala Madre (an extraordinary Luis Tosar). The implications of the revolt go beyond the prison walls when the rioters turn on a group of Basque political prisoners. Daniel Monzón’s taut, gripping jailhouse thriller is laced with commentary on the current Spanish political scene.