Carlos Velat Movies

In this unlikely children's feature, the students must cope with an extraordinary chaos of violence and bullying not only from their fellow students, who at ages six through twelve are adept in the savage use of guns and knives, but from their principal, whose thuggish ways no doubt indicate the probable result of such an upbringing. Amid these scenes of horror, Cain, one of the younger students, is bright-eyed, optimistic and is forever emulating his "betters." Only the kids' schoolteacher fails to get embroiled in the ever-pervasive violence around him, but only because he is too clueless and inept to do so. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This entertaining comedy is set in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War when a group of Republican soldiers sneak into a village in enemy territory to steal a bull with plans of butchering it to feed themselves. Fate and the bull itself, however, have other plans. One of the surreptitious bull-snatchers knows the village well -- he grew up there, but that advantage alone cannot guarantee their success, as it turns out. The group of five would-be thieves dress themselves in uniforms of the Nationalist troops in an attempt to dissimulate their true identity. But instead of a neat getaway with a bull in tow, they are caught up in the "correo" or running of the bull, they get involved in a religious procession, and in the end, watch as the bull breaks out of a flimsy ring in a bullfight and heads for the hills. Still hungry, the group of men now have to worry about getting back to their own battalion before they are found out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Aurora is a dedicated feminist in the early part of this century, who doesn't need men in her life. She successfully arranges to be impregnated by a man so that she can have a child. The child turns out to be the girl Hildegart, an intellectual prodigy, gifted at languages, music, and literature. She is the center of Aurora's life. However, when Hildegart begins to show what her mother considers to be an unbecoming interest in boys and men, a betrayal of her mother's principles, she executes her one night while she is asleep. This movie slowly unravels the story of Hildegart's birth, development and murder as it emerges during a 1933 murder trial. The story is based on the novel Aurora de Sangre by Eduardo de Guzman. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi