José María Cañete
Madrid in the 40s: in an old neighborhood tavern, every first Friday of the month at nightfall Moor Hauma organizes a unique and secret card game. The Caudillo, Francisco Franco, meets with several friends of Africa's campaign for a game.
The film takes on a trip through a lively metropolis on the eve of a major holiday, witnessing the love lives, family situations, gender confusion and even a diamond traffic ring uniting some 14 different characters. They all have something in common - they're after love, money, live in or visit the same luxury apartment building, and speak Catalan, in the pulsating and hallucinating Barcelona of the 1990s.
Carmen, a journalist with two children, is on her third marriage, to Antonio, a record producer. Over the course of a year, we follow her through her discontents: Antonio's lateness, his fatigue when she wants to make love, his insistence on her company when she prefers solitude, his treating her work as less important than his, his casual and cruel dismissal of her opinions, her boss assigning her an incompetent editor, bartenders ignoring her, her passage into middle age. She can be feisty and edgy, which sometimes gets in the way of what would make her happy. And she regularly threatens to leave Antonio. Will she, and on what terms? What will he do?
A film team arrives at a more authentic and old square in Madrid to shoot a film. The area is full of children, working families and simple people who see the cinema as something unattainable. From his balcony, Paloma, does not lose detail of the shooting, nor of the movements of the gallant, for which he feels a strong attraction.
After a long and turbulent time in America at the beginning of the century, Adrian Massaguer returns to his birthplace on the Mediterranean coast, become one of the richest men in the world.
April, 1940. Manolo, 16 years old, and Jesus, who is just 8, are taken by their older brother Pepe, a lieutenant in the Army, to a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis, situated on the border with Portugal. Once in the sanatorium, Manolo, surrounded by boys all much younger than he is, feels a bit like the cock of the walk since the only other man around is the handyman Emilio who looks after the gardens and does whatever needs to be done about the place. His wife, Rafaela, is the cook. Manolo meets Irene, a falangist who runs the sanatorium, and the school teacher, Miss Transito, a crabby spinster. He has his first sexual experience, albeit as a voyeur, with his nurse Vicenta. When she has to leave, her place is taken by a girl from the village, Maria Jesus, with whom Manolo falls hopelessly in love. A relationship grows up between them which will mark them both for ever.
Pablo and Fernando, owners of a children's book publishing company about to go bankrupt, have managed through unorthodox means to contract the country's best-selling author, Adela Mora. The evening of the official signing, Paco asks his friend to let him use his house for a love tryst while Fernando wines and dines Adela. At the same time, Paco's wife, Carmen, will be taking her lover to Rosa's house. From here on the rout begins, as Paco tries to get rid of Silvia, his secretary, and Carmen, her husband. Fernando thinks Rosa is cheating on him with Oscar, who thinks Fernando is gay and having an affair with his partner, while the soldier thinks his girlfriend is a professional...
A Spanish police chief hires an undercover agent (a Jewish mercenary(?)) to infiltrate a gang of heroin smugglers. The mercenary is code-named Eagle because of a tattoo. Infiltrating the gang, he uses a female agent as a point of contact. However, as he gets deeper into the gang, he discovers that there bigger goings-on than dope. The gang is involved in the transportation of smuggled uranium for the manufacture of nuclear arms for sale to Libya and other aspiring third world countries. Things get even stickier when a ruthless bad guy shows up and he turns out to be one of Eagle's former cohorts in the Foreign Legion.
The consortium of the people approve a proposal from the Mayor; instruct Ramon, a ruined sculptor, an equestrian statue of Franco. Luis, one of the councilors, visit Ramon and proposes the commission, Ramon rejects for ideological grounds, but after thinking it accepts as there are no marble equestrian statues. When Ramon finally finished the statue, the whole consortium believes it is past time to inaugurate a statue of Franco. To satisfy Ramon approve the making of a new statue. This is dedicated to democracy.
A young American is framed and thrown into a Mexican prison. His friends journey to Mexico to break him out.
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.
Not published writer, a sculptor who does not expose, a filmmaker who does not make movies ... amateur and professional around anything. His daughter, which is to care, is the only one who understands. A film producer who bombarded daily with an overview, each more extravagant reproaches his fantasy and challenges to look carefully for 24 hours whichever comes around to check that everything that happens follows a rigorous logic .
In the middle of the first world war, Barcelona is the center of multiple operations related to war, although Spain is a neutral country.
Four different Alices wander through mazes constructed from 40 years of Spanish history in this post-Franco meditation. Loosely related to the "Alice" of Alice in Wonderland, in one episode of this film, Alice (who is clearly a metaphor for the Spanish people) is raped by some multinational corporations. Told in a somewhat confusing manner, especially for those unfamiliar with the nuances of Spain's history in the period between 1936 and 1975, this is director Jorge Feliu's first feature film.
Gemser plays one of a pair of sexy bisexual nurses living in an apartment building one floor up from a middle-aged couple and their son Albert, who is only too happy to have the randy rug-munchers in the apartment above: whilst gorgeous Gemser is getting it on with her equally luscious lover, Albert is busy putting his new science project—a periscope—to good use by spying on the lingerie-wearing lovelies. Meanwhile, Albert’s mother is being even naughtier than her precious boy, sneaking off for some extra-marital sex while her hair-obsessed husband is at the salon, having his follicles tended to.
Lozana, a young, beautiful and clever woman decides to move to the city after a tragic love story. There, she meets Rampin, a naughty rascal who soon finds out that her wit surpasses his own by a handful. When he falls in love with her, he can't help suffering as he sees how she plays not only with him, but with all of her lovers as well.
Season 1973-1974. After fourteen years of drought, the FC Barcelona of Johan Cruyff is making a spectacular campaign. Sebastián, a great fan of soccer, decides then to join a Barça's supporters club. There he will meet the daughter of his friend Amadeo, an attractive young woman who will not stop until Sebastián agrees to marry her. The couple will celebrate their wedding on the same day that Barça and Madrid compete for the League.
Mario and Teresa are a seemingly happy marriage, but she reproaches that he does not value enough her work at home. As he is not willing to recognize the importance of domestic chores, Teresa offers him to exchange roles. While Teresa gets a job, and develops very well, Mario is unable to keep the house in order.
