Discoveries from Spain World Cinema

Basque Country, Spain, 2011. A young woman who intends to flee to France due to the turbulent political situation stops in Zubieta, a border town where ancient myths and modern problems converge.

A married woman starts a lesbian relationship.

A disturbed priest, who witness an occult ritual, thinks the people are possessed and start a private inquisition to exorcise the demons by torturing them to death.

The story of salesman Salvador Lozano and his ambiguous relationship with young hostess Inés.

Three unequal brothers seek revenge for the murder of their father. Each of them goes a different way.

An ageing artist in the twilight of his career, Fermín's hand has started to shake. On the brink of financial ruin, he will have to move into the studio he shares with his friend Javier de Juan in an old garage, to which his son Pablo, also a painter, arrives on his return from a long trip to India, intending to stay with him. Their widely differing approaches to art and life will soon spark arguments between the two. Pepa, Pablo's mother and Fermín's ex, makes a suggestion: that they enter a competition to create their own version of El Bosco's The Garden of Earthly Delights, which could solve their financial problems.

Elena is a writer and is in a relationship with a painter, Fernando. Charo works as a waitress in a hotel and continues to dream of John Sargent, her platonic love, although when she discovers that the actor is gay she returns to her boyfriend Luis. Mara, a model, and Miguel is dating a sick man much older than them. Eugenia is a haute couture dressmaker and cares for her niece Soledad, who wants to be a singer. All of them have ambitions of love, but none is happy with their current situation.

The film resembles a Ten Little Indians plot, with the crew of a Western film in post-production (who are staying as guests on an island retreat) cropping up as corpses one by one after the mysterious and inexplicable kidnapping of a child. The film plays up its traditional mystery angle, with each of the guests being as likely a suspect as the next, in scenes such as one in which all of the guests sit around in the parlor and cast dramatic, accusatory glances at one another.

It's a cold and stormy night, and in a house in rural Vermont, midwife Sibyl Danforth is, together with the father and an assistant, in the middle of a homebirth. As time passes, the woman in labor meets with difficulties and Sibyl concludes that it would be preferable for the woman to deliver her baby in the hospital. Though a dead telephone line and bad weather prevents Sibyl from going anywhere. Black ice and a persisten snowstorm makes transportation an impossibility. Early in the morning, the woman dies from what they believe to be a stroke and in all the chaos, Sibyl promptly decides to do a C-section to save the baby. The baby survives, but the mother is dead and tragedy is obvious. Yet, it's only going to get worse for Sibyl as her assistant is certain that the woman was still alive when Sibyl performed the C-section. Sibyl is charged with manslaughter, brought before the court and her life is and will forever be changed.

Antonio is the leader of an underground armed group fighting in the village of Ronda against Napoleon's troops which have imposed French rule in 1808 Spain. Micaela is madly in love with Antonio but he is devoted to Carmen, the region's most beautiful gypsy who lives and sings at a local inn.

The troubled story of the Churruca family, a noble lineage of brave seamen, descendants of Cosme Damián Churruca, the Spanish hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; from the Spanish-American War (1898) to the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). (In 1950, a new cut of the film was released with less ideological depth and ten minutes shorter.)

Marisol is a young girl with a vivid imagination and a heart of gold who witnesses a picture robbery in a museum...

In a Valencian village, during the postwar period, Ana tries to get ahead with her family; the civil war has opened a deep wound in all of them, especially in her brother-in-law, Antonio. Ana tries to heal that wound with stews, secrets and silences, but when Isabel, newly married to Antonio, comes to the family, Ana’s attention and care will be worth little or nothing: the sacrifice does not always have its reward.

A small town in Spain, October 1955. Isabel, a 35-year-old dreamer who feels like a failure because she is not married yet, becomes the new target of a group of soulless pranksters.

Poor gigolo tries to frame his rich mature mistress, but gets tangled in his own wiles.

Emily, after a sudden breakup with her boyfriend, cannot find herself in a new reality. Without much consideration she sets off alone for the holiday stay they planned together. On the spot she meets Maria — the owner of the holiday cottages. At first, Emily gets irritated by Maria’s straightforward manner. With time, aversion turns into fascination. Thanks to Maria, Emily will never forget that summer.

This movie doesn't have any coherent plot. It's the portrait of the lives of different people in the hard years of post-war in Spain (the 40's), and how they manage to survive in a country desolated by the war. Like other films: La colmena or Roma (Fellini) it shows us lots of characters and some moments of their lives.

In the 1970s, Agustín Gómez Arcos rose to the top of French literature, while in his own country, Spain, his name remained hidden. A Free Man reflects on the recent history of Spain through silences, lost stories and the role of culture and memory.

Gaby, Fer's mother and Silvia, Diego's mother, live their lives happily, until one day, due to Diego's kidney disease they find out that the kids were switched at birth. In order to save Diego’, both mothers end up in a legal battle to see who will have the custody of which kid.

The film begins with a school teacher bidding farewell to his students, who are leaving for the summer. As he is heading home he notices two of his students are hitch-hiking and picks them up. He invites them over for dinner and lodging, which they accept.. The majority of the film from this point on is set at the mansion, where the two students turn from guests to prisoners under the teacher's command.

In the midst of political upheaval in Brazil, Travis Mathews directs this startling and moving film of the intersection between class, privilege and sex. A man lives a lonely, exquisite lifestyle in his large, empty apartment. He hears a noise, of a man stumbling through the window in his bedroom. The man has a gun, and he shakes while he holds it. What follows is a tender, complex exploration of lust and desire between two very talented performers and the faultless Direction of Mathews.

Julián is a successful video-game designer whose life is plagued by a dark secret. But when Diana pops up in his life, the man will feel as though a chance at happiness is within his grasp.

The story of the encounter between a boy and a girl. He confesses that he fell in love with her at first sight, but she does not believe him. However, as they walk through the night in Madrid, they share their desires, secrets, and maybe a few little lies. But soon the film brings us back to the harsh reality of power struggles, psychological games and conflicts between the sexes. Stockholm thus offers an incredible reading of the relations between young people today.

Arrebato (1980) is the great cult movie of today's Spanish cinema and Iván Zulueta, its director, an accursed filmmaker. Arrebato was the film that forecast the end of the movida, a dark and harrowing reel whose history and intra-history are intimately linked. Arrebato acts as a premonition of the director’s own life. Just like his actors, Zulueta will end up being brought down by drugs and the cinema and, like them, will also disappear.

Two couples in their thirties, heated discussions on the essentials of life unfolding between Madrid and the neighbouring countryside.

Known as "El Mago Pop," illusionist Antonio Díaz shocks and awes celebrities and bystanders around the world with his mind-blowing performances.

A group of tourists arrive to see the botanical gardens on a small island off the Italian coast. The only inhabitants of the island are the famous botanist Baron von Weser and his two faithful servants; all of the other residents fled after a series of mysterious deaths. When the car driven by the tourists' guide hits one of the baron's servants, von Weser explains that the death was due to a rare and incurable disease, not the accident. That night, the guide and Cora Robinson, one of the guests, are found murdered with all the blood drained from their bodies.

Pablo and Blanca have decided to try swinging, but ignore its first and most fundamental rule: to abstain from doing so when things aren't going well in a relationship. To bring this about, Pablo and Blanca each call a friend who is single, Lucas and Mia respectively, thereby ignoring the second cardinal rule: to only swing with another couple.

This tragic drama is based on the ballet by famed composer Manuel De Falla. A young woman is caught between the violent struggle of two rival suitors who love her passionately. Candelas (La Polaca) is pursued by kind-hearted Antonio (Antonio Gades) and the evil diablo Diego (Rafael Cordova). Lucia (Morucha) is the cryptic gypsy fortune teller, with Fernando Sanchez Polack as Candela's beloved father.

Dr Sánchez Blanch owns and operates a psychiatric hospital where he specializes in hypnotizing his severely emotionally disturbed patients.

When Amador Coro gets out of prison for having provoked a fire, nobody is waiting for him. He returns to his home town, a small village hidden in the mountains of rural Galicia, to live with his elder mother, Benedicta, and three cows. Life goes on calmly, following the rhythm of the nature. Until the night when a fire devastates the region.

José Manuel and the other members of the ufology association Ovni-Levante meet weekly to exchange information about extraterrestrial messages and abductions. Julio, their leader, dies unexpectedly, leaving José Manuel as the only person who knows about the cosmic secret that could alter the human future.

A young woman was seduced by a high positioned official who is married but when she falls in love with a young man she tries to break the other relationship...

Roberto is a retired man who lives alone and rents a room in his house to a young student, Carmen, who soon begins to fascinate him; he spreads the joy of his new life to Carlos, an even older friend than him, who also decides to rent a room to another young girl, Sonia, who aspires to be a soccer player despite her dissolute life.

Susana wakes up after 20 years in a coma. Now a 90s teenager in a 21st century woman's body, Susana will have to navigate a world in which nothing is familiar to her and she will have to learn to live in it.

Agents from diverse Spanish local police forces are called to form a special team.

Nico is a famous actor in Argentina, but in New York, nobody takes notice. He needs to juggle bartending, babysitting and odd jobs to keep himself afloat. But when old friends from Buenos Aires come to visit, he needs to juggle the image of his old life with the reality of the struggling actor in New York City.

The story of Diego, a young and successful photographer that lives in the glamorous world of fashion, shallowness and excess. A tragic accident turns his world around; his partner is now in a coma. Unexpectedly, and right at this terrible time, Diego must take care of his son, Armando. Now, both of them have to adapt to each other; Armando to the unknown, homosexual world of his father, and Diego to the closed attitude of his teenage son.

The Passion of Jesus, starting with His arrest and trial, was shot near Madrid and features narration by Sebastien Cabot. Jesus' face is never seen, but in the English version, He is voiced by veteran Hollywood actor Macdonald Carey.

An American secret agent is sent to Europe to track down a ring of counterfeiters. His investigation takes him from Rome to Albania, where he gets involved with a sexy Albanian police commissioner.

An elder lighthouse keeper takes care of what has been his home for years. Old and secluded from society, he's disturbed by mysterious bottled letters. These and an unexpected malfunction make him doubt his job, his life and his existence.

Documentary that portrays the social, political and economic life of Haiti before and after the 2010 earthquake.

Eliseo is ugly, lame and single. He hasn't met the woman of his life and has never known love. Nati is ugly, missing a breast and separated. She found the man of her life but, even so, has never experienced true love. Eliseo thinks that the worst of his life is still to come. Nati thinks that the best of her life is still to come. The death of Eliseo's mother reunites them twenty years on in a last chance to find happiness and love. But what happens when the woman of your life is married to your brother

In the year 2000, Maixabel Lasa’s husband, Juan Maria Jauregi, was killed by ETA. Eleven years later, she receives an incredible request: one of the men who killed Juan wants to meet with her in the Nanclares de la Oca prison in Araba (Spain), where he is serving his sentence after breaking ties with the terrorist group. Despite her reservations and her immense pain, Maixabel Lasa agrees to meet face to face with those who ended the life of the person who had been her companion since she was 16 years old. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance’, she said, when asked why she was willing to confront the man who killed her husband.

J. is depressed. E. lives peacefully. S. tries to get back with his wife. G. resorts to anxiolytics. P. plays seduction games. María and Sara exchange their husbands. L. calls his lover in a peculiar way.

Paco is the boy buttons a luxury hotel. Usually do small businesses with the resale of tickets to bullfights tourists. By a misunderstanding is fired from his job. There is no use of his taste and wanders the Victoria Street taverns. Finally discovers his only chance in bulls, easy craft that believes and loves. The reality is very different and has to accept the truth which manifests itself in a very dramatic.

The young Candelas, seduced and abandoned by Arturo, an unscrupulous womanizer, meets two soldiers, Tiburcio and Angelillo, who, in order to help the girl out of her predicament, organize a musical recital to raise money.

For more than forty years, Argentinean sportsman Guillermo Vilas, a tennis legend, has tirelessly demanded that the official rankings (1973-78) be revised in order to finally be recognized as the best player in the world. Eduardo Puppo, a sports journalist, making Vilas' demand his own, fought for more than ten years against a powerful sports corporation to prove that Vilas was indeed unfairly displaced from the top of world tennis.

The Ahumada family wants to be happy at all costs and do not mind sacrificing others along the way. But happiness, is not always where you seek it.

In a flashback, Kim Ros, explains the story of a TV director-host, himself, who created a scary show that finally destroyed him. The show was called IRIS, and their stars were sociopathyc people who didn't know they really were part of the show.

A group of travelers, stranded at an isolated, fog-bound mansion, are beset upon by the living dead from the adjoining cemetery.

California, 1847. The territory is about to be incorporated into the United States. Parker, the new governor, is a cruel man who believes that the time has come to get rich regardless of the means, but he will soon find a mysterious opponent driven to end his tyranny.

Thirteen-year-old Ramon is on the verge of many adolescent discoveries -- and the confusion that goes along with them. Shy and awkward, he's moved from town to town throughout his childhood and believes that life is about winning and losing. But he soon learns it's all about survival. Like Ramon, Spain is in transition (President Francisco Franco is about to die); it's a time of social upheaval marked by change, illusion and struggle.

Kronos, hero of a distant galaxy, tangles with mad scientist Gulik over the fate of mankind.

Norberto Lopez Amado's They're Watching Us is about a cop who becomes obsessed with a case. Juan (Carmelo Gomez) is ordered to head up an investigation concerning a businessman who has been missing for almost three years. The officer who worled on the case previously now resides in a mental institution and is unable to say anything other than, "They're watching us." A priest (Roberto Alvarez) explains how a series of disappearances in the area have supernatural underpinnings. As Juan is absorbed deeper and deeper into the case, his mother is concerned for him.

Jone is a sixteen year old girl that lives in Bilbao (Basque Country) in 2009. In her highschool you can feel the independentist environment, demonstrations, strikes... are usuals between the students organizations. In this moment her dad starts to work int the Basque Government, between other things he has to go with body guards. This situation will change Jones life and she will have to learn to live between two worlds that she doesn't understand yet, and to understand that not everything is black or white.