José Luis Garci
Spain, shortly after the end of the Franco dictatorship. Six months after the mysterious death of his lover, a prestigious tailor, a married woman visits the office of the young Germán Areta, a former police officer turned private detective, to request his professional services.
Finally, 33 years later, the whole truth behind the attempted coup d'état that shook Spain on the afternoon of February 23, 1981, is revealed by those who lived through those dreadful hours; a deep look behind the heavy curtain which hides the real mastermind, waiting to be unmasked.
Film based on the characters of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It tells a hypothetical meeting in Madrid between the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.
The story of Enrique Herreros (1903-1977), cartoonist, advertiser, poster designer, talent manager, actor, producer and filmmaker, and the most daring of mountaineers; the man who, along with his companions from the so-called “other Generation of '27,” brought Hollywood to Madrid's Gran Vía, turning a grey and sinister post-war city into the capital of an incipient and ambitious cultural industry.
Revolution in Spain, around the events of 2 May 1808, when the people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation.
The small Asturian village of Cenciella, Spain, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The quiet life of Urbano and Estrella, a kind and naive couple in love, is seriously altered when they get involved in the fierce struggle between the local political factions.
Two speleologists, Esteban and Pedro, travel to a mountainous area located in northern Spain, near a small village, to study a newly discovered cave and determine if it is of scientific interest, while Gabi, Esteban's wife, awaits their return on a lonely road at the foot of the mountain…
What we tend to identify with the acting profession has little to do with what is really this profession. Thirty-six Spanish actors reflect on their work and contrasted their experiences. As thread, the contrast between the voices of veterans and images of young theater students , for whom everything is still possible. Among the many actors are interviewed Javier Bardem, Antonio Banderas, Victoria Abril, Carmen Maura, Fernando Fernán Gómez, José Luis López Vázquez, José Coronado, Emma Suarez, Alberto San Juan, Ariadna Gil, Ana Belén, Pilar Lopez de Ayala and many other.
This movie has any coherent plot. It is more the portrait of the lives of different people in the hard years of post-war in Spain (the 40's), and how people 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.
Julia, an only child of an affluent, bank owning family living in Madrid, escapes from her family to get over her grief that her boyfriend has been imprisoned. Julia is a well educated woman, having studied in Switzerland and England, who wants to become a writer. Julia drives to a little village in Asturias called "Corralbos del Sella" and there she stays in a mansion "llendelabarca" of an old childhood friend "Pilara" she had spent many a happy summer with. Also living there is Pilara's mother in law Tia Gala, and her grandson Juanito. Julia's relationship with caretakers, teacher and priest makes Julia, a woman of the spanish capital, perhaps for the first time to not feel so alone.
After his son dies, an elderly man comes back to Spain from the US and hopes to find out which of his granddaughters is true, and which one is bastard.
It is long since Dr. Mills, a renowned cardiologist, and his wife Elizabeth are going through a marital crisis. They live in a provincial capital in the oppressive Spain of the fifties, accompanied by two maids. Their only daughter has entered a monastery. The unexpected love the doctor feels for Julia, a young colleague, makes him feel alive again. Elizabeth's refusal to accept separation, leads him to use other methods.
Discussion about Victor Erice's 1983 film "El Sur." Filmed for Spanish television in 1996.
A 50-year-old playwright (Jesus Puente) bemoans his fate from his secluded home in Northern Spain in this depressing drama. Side plots include an actress and former acquaintance who comes to visit and his amorous diversions with a 20-year-old local woman.
This 1985 Spanish film reveals one of the many terrible aspects of 16th century Spain, still plagued by the radical Christian Inquisition, one of a plethora of difficulties Spaniards faced at the time. Spanish super star Carmen Maura plays a nun who agrees to a selfless scam, a fake stigmata, only to avoid separation from her lover, another nun. It's a serious and passionate work, highlighting the theme of outspoken women-against-repression, seen in other good gay and lesbian films. This is not a lesbian "Nun sense" or another "Dark Habits" (by Almodovar, which also starred Carmen Maura, and also set in a Spanish convent, with some lesbian nuns). Perhaps, best of all, 'Extramuros' is realistic and frank. It isn't shy about its characters' sexuality. Their sexuality, and the film as a whole are genuine.
Director José Luis Garci has turned his camera inward on filmmakers and screenwriters to portray them as so self-absorbed in the creative process that there is no other world, no other human relationship that can compete. As José (Adolfo Marsillach) and Federico (Jesus Puente) work together on a new screenplay, their interactions with their family (José's teen daughters, Federico's wife) disappear under the all-consuming task of creation. The daughters give up and go off on their own, and the wife joins a convent while Federico barely notices. And when the producer is interrupted by profound grief at the sudden death of his older son, he almost automatically returns to thinking about the film project when the funeral has ended. Garci honors many great directors at the beginning of this film, and the film continues to play out as an elaboration on this homage -- an illustration both of the dedication and the cost of filmmaking, no judgments given.
Private detective Germán “el Piojo” Areta investigates the life of a gay man who has apparently abandoned his partner. When they both turn up dead, it seems one killed the other before committing suicide, but Areta is not convinced.
Drama based on the true life of a group of middle class and members of the Communist Party of Spain, who were involved in clandestine political activities during the sixties.
Famous Spanish film critic Alfonso Sánchez talks about his personal life, his work and Anouk Aimée. A sentimental tribute to one of the most relevant figures on the Spanish film scene.
José is a happily married executive, with children, a flat in Madrid and a house in the suburbs. It's Friday and the weekend seems to follow the usual pattern: football match with mates, travel to the mountains and family visit. Nevertheless, José feels no motivated by his routine, he no longer distinguishes leisure from their obligations, all of which result in an unexpected final decision by his attentive wife.
Jose, a journalist and radio broadcaster, runs a daily program under the title 'Alone in the wee hours' ('Solos en la madrugada'), which has garnered a huge national audience as a satirical chronicle of Spanish society in the democratic transition of the late 1970s. Married and separated from Elena, Jose has two children, whom he only sees from time to time. Then he meets Maite, younger than him, outgoing and more open-minded than he wants. The emotional shock caused by his relationship with these two women will change his pessimistic view of life.
Joseph and Helen, who had been boyfriends, there meeting some years later and fall madly in love again, but now the two are married. His hard and clandestine love story addition is determined by the circumstances of the times in which they have lived: the last years of the Franco regime and the beginning of the transition.
The young Enrique leaving to study at the University and is married to Juana. One day he meets a painter who takes Enrique into another life and confused begin to think about taking some drastic measures.
A memory of Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), woman, actress, goddess, myth, in the words of the Spanish director and scriptwriter José Luis Garci, who returns to his childhood and recovers a lost paradise.
Any given Sunday of 1974 in Spain, soccer games in several stadiums, the sarcastic voice of commentators, the inevitable presence of advertising. Goal! The victors and the defeated.
Enrique is a thirty-year-old lawyer who is married to Ana. Apparently he is a normal man who has only one obsession: the commercials. He feels a real passion for the erotic world of the ads either in billboards, trash cans, public transport, magazines or television. The continuous publicity bombardment ends up leading him towards a neurosis that changes his personality.
A Spanish insurance company is absorbed by a multinational, so that, in order to modernize, its employees are obliged to carry out some training courses to adapt to the new situation and the new objectives. Given the relevance of what is at stake, the wives of these men will also be involved at work.
Martín is a tormented and solitary man who hides a shameful and unspeakable secret: he lives with a life-size doll which he treats as if it were his wife. This idyliic, loving existence will be gravely threatened when a prostitute, her daughter, and a pimp enter his life.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory conspires with her husband to acquire the blood of virgins to maintain her youth and beauty.
Set in the future, the story follows a nurse who tries to bring her own style of relief to people condemned to die. Her identity is a mystery and she may not be quite what she seems.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) a Republican detachment occupies a huge mansion near the front. One of the daughters of the owners of the house falls in love with a soldier, a young priest who seeks to keep hidden her condition.
A man gets trapped inside a telephone box and nobody is able to free him…
