Alejandro Hernández
In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.
Within the walls of an interrogation room and with time running out, London investigators go after three suspects, each accused of a grievous crime.
Tito is 23 years old with a mother who loves him and a car that allows him to earn an honest living. His neighbors see him as a formal and educated boy. Nobody knows that behind that façade hides someone with a nihilistic vision of life. And that involves committing terrible acts for which he may have to pay someday. But Tito does not care about the future. There is only the present.
In 1966, Justo Gil arrives in Barcelona as a migrant with the purpose of gaining enough money to give his sick mother the best care. His great charisma allows him to socialize with the youngsters of the upper-class, until an unexpected turn of events makes him become an informer of the political police, in order to pursue communist cells.
Álvaro, a man obsessed with the idea of writing what he brands as “high literature,” manipulates the lives and feelings of the people around him to write about the consequences caused by his devious acts.
The Philippines, 1898. Fifty Spanish soldiers arrive in the small village of Baler to rebuild an outpost. Although the war against the Filipinos and their American allies is almost lost, as is the Spanish Empire, the garrison will endure a cruel siege for eleven months. They will be the last to surrender.
Eva, an honest and rigorous examining magistrate, investigates the murder of a young stripper in which a powerful businessman is apparently involved, but she is unable to find enough evidence to implicate him… until a mysterious witness appears who makes her an offer she can't refuse.
Álvaro, before escaping from himself during ten years, return to his town, a small village in Galicia, to attend to his father's funeral. There he will try to make it up with his brother and to recoup his daugther Mar. Everything gets complicated when he finds a dead woman in the road, the woman is Lidia, a Mar's friend who works as a prostitute.
A reunion with his family provides a clue into the cause of one man's lonely life in this drama from filmmaker Manuel Martin Cuenca. Oscar lives in a barren section of Almeria, Spain, where he works as a guard at a salt mine. Oscar's days are governed by a monotonous routine: he goes to work, has lunch with fellow guard Miguel, finishes work, visits his dying grandfather at a hospice, and then goes home. While he sometimes spends his evenings with a woman, it's clear their relationship is not a close one. One day, Oscar gets word that grandfather has been transferred to a hospital, and his sister Maria, who now lives in Paris, comes to Almeria to pay the old man a visit. Maria, who is expecting a baby, is accompanied by her boyfriend Jean , who tries to keep a distance between the two siblings. It becomes clear that Oscar and Maria share an ugly secret that she wants to keep hidden at all costs, leading to an grim tension that grows between her and her brother.
When the troubled son of an NGO worker refuses to take a test and announces that he is not leaving his room, his concerned mother asks one of her clients, a Cuban exile, for help in setting the boy straight. Gonzalo has decided to drop out of school, and his mother Ana isn't sure how to convince the boy that he's making a crucial mistake. Ana's client Carlos is a Cuban exile who makes his living selling cigars and artwork on the black market. When Carlos learns of Ana's dilemma, he calls on recently released convict Mikel to teach the boy how to play chess. Perhaps is young Gonzalo can master the game, he can learn to start living again. As the lessons get underway, each of these characters learns that in order to truly move on with their lives they much first break free of the bonds that prevent them from being who they really are.
