Jorge Grau
A feature-length documentary exploring the history of the Spanish zombie film.
This is the first and only feature-length documentary on the life and cinema of the late Jorge Grau, who is most famous for his classic social-political horror masterpiece "Living Dead at Manchester Morgue" (1974), seen by some critics as a fierce critique of the Franco government albeit set in a displaced foreign locale.
A walk through the golden age of Spanish exploitation cinema, from the sixties to the eighties; a low-budget cinema and great popular acceptance that exploited cinematographic fashions: westerns, horror movies, erotic comedies and thrillers about petty criminals.
In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films. International markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Spanish horror frequented international mimicry —Hammer Productions' Gothic horror is a paramount influence— and offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.
Actor and writer Mark Gatiss embarks on a chilling journey through European horror cinema, from the silent nightmares of German Expressionism in the 1920s to the Belgian lesbian vampires in the 1970s, from the black-gloved killers of Italian bloody giallo cinema to the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, and finally reveals how Europe's turbulent 20th century forged its ground-breaking horror tradition.
Hour-long documentary about distinctive-looking Spanish character actor Víctor Israel.
King of Horror, legendary actor, scriptwriter and director, Paul Naschy is regarded as the Spanish Lon Chaney and the most prolific filmmaker dedicated to the fantastic cinema in Spain.
Retrospective piece that features the director reflecting on several aspects of the film a quarter-century after the fact, including the performances of the actors, the development of the sound effects and music, the special effects.
Daniel is a man who wants to escape from a reality that overwhelms him. That is why he imagines, invents and lies for pleasure. Such invention will lead him to live strange and unusual adventures, giving rise to a magical comedy about everyday life seen through his eyes.
A female lawyer passionately defends criminals, believing that everyone deserves a second chance. But her latest defendants though have no qualms about making her their next victim. They steal her car, find the keys to her country villa and decide to rob the place. Unfortunately, the lawyer's family turns up at the villa mid-burglary, and her husband is killed. But that is only the beginning of the nightmare...
Spain 1640, the reverend superior nun Mariana, attends the death of her younger sister, Isabel's husband, who is overcome with hopelessness and heartache. Isabel then kisses and caresses the cadaver's exposed body as if he were still alive. Mother Mariana
Pamplona (Spain), 1975: Dr. Navarro, a famous doctor in the city, feels strongly attracted to Juana, his nurse, who is also in love with the doctor. Navarro, however, moved by his strong religious convictions (in fact, he is a numerary member of Opus Dei) remains faithful to his wife and tries by all means to prevent that their relations with Juana break through professional boundaries. For the purpose of that, he orders the nurse will sent to another hospital. This will push Juana to take the initiative and provoke the doctor during San Fermines.
Exercise testing, with the constraint of being an independent film production and risky, is a very free version of the classic Greek myth, and has its best supplement in Contestatarios (Poemágenes 1) short film shot during the French May '68, whose exhibition was banned and which until now has not offered ever in a movie theater.
When a series of murders hit the remote English countryside, a detective suspects a pair of travelers when it is actually the work of the undead, jarred back to life by an experimental ultra-sonic radiation machine used by the Ministry of Agriculture to kill insects.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory conspires with her husband to acquire the blood of virgins to maintain her youth and beauty.
A chronicle of the different reactions of a girl when she finds that her boyfriend decides to end their relationship.
Barcelona 1967. The pop culture revolution. Jordi (Patrick Bauchau) is a rich playboy who runs around with a bunch of high-end hippies, smoking, drinking, dancing and daydreaming about Tuset Street, an effort to develop a popular street in the newer section of Barcelona after the models of Haight Ashbury Street in San Francisco and Carnaby Street in London. Jordi and his gang represent the new Barcelona, wealthy, artificial and striving for imported sophistication. On the older side of the city is El Paralelo, the theater district. At El Molino, one of its many music halls, performs Violeta (Sara Montiel), a showgirl in the old style tradition who supplements her singing income with prostitution. Somehow Violeta represents the old values, the "real world" living along side an artificial creation such as Tuset.
An aspiring young writer lives with his pregnant wife and works for a newspaper to provide for his growing family. When his sister-in-law comes to visit, there is a mutual attraction between the guest and the writer.
An expressionist reimagining of the classic Greek myth involving Acteón and Diana, transposed to Spain's Costa Brava by a future auteur of horror cinema. Based on the myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which Acteón accidentally catches a glimpse of Diana, the goddess of love, and is subsequently turned into a deer for his dogs to devour, Jorge Grau's modernist retelling resets the story to contemporary Spain, where a fisherman – played by Martin LaSalle, star of Bresson's Pickpocket – follows an enchanting, flirtatious stranger into the city.
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.
"Jorge Grau's first feature film, shot in glorious black and white in 1962, this Spanish-Italian coproduction is in many ways related to Antonioni's "La Notte". Both films speak about the impairing ability to communicate as well as the desire and impossibility to establish a relationship, and a party as background scenery. Where Antonioni's film depicts a luxurious party in Milan, Grau's version portraits the gathering of several characters with no expectations on the night of the sommer solistice in Barcelona."
While on holiday in Rhodes, Athenian war hero Darios becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow the tyrannical king, one from Rhodian patriots and the other from sinister Phoenician agents.
Cimera de los Infantes, Castile, Spain. The young men who meet every day in the bar La Rana Verde are bored because they barely have fun, so they decide to seduce the girls who attend a summer course in the historic castle of the town.
First short film by director Jorge Grau, about tuna fishing, with a look somewhere between tourism and anthropology.
