Fernando Bovaira Movies

Having previously explored the ways in which war robs children of their innocence in his 1999 drama The Butterfly's Tongue, director José Luis Cuerda once again turns his attentions towards the Spanish Civil War and its devastating aftermath with this period drama set in 1940 and following a family forced to live a lie in order to avoid death. To the outside world, Elena (Maribel Verdú) is a caring mother who lives alone with her son Lorenzo (Roger Príncep) and daughter Elenita (Irene Escolar). Unbeknownst to anyone except her immediate family, however, is the fact that her husband Ricardo (Javier Cámara), a Republican schoolteacher, is also hiding out in the family home. Meanwhile, Lorenzo's teacher Salvador (Raúl Arévalo) remains deeply shaken by the horrors he both witnessed and partook in as a soldier in the war. Salvador was still a wide-eyed seminary student when he was sent off to fight, his experiences on the battlefield casing him to question both his faith and his allegiance to the government. Later, when Salvador meets Elena, he begins to form a dangerous obsession with the beautiful woman that soon threatens to destroy her entire family. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Javier Fesser's stylish action comedy Le Gran Aventura de Mortadelo y Filemon (Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure) brings to life a pair of comic-book characters. Filemon (Pepe Viyuela) and Mortadelo (Benito Pocino) are bumbling secret agents who are fired after their supervisor hires Fredy Mazas (Dominique Pinon) to track down a powerful substance invented by Prof. Bacterio (Janfri Topera) that has fallen into the wrong hands. At the time of its release in its native country of Spain, the film had the most successful opening weekend in history for any domestic film. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Five strangers from various parts of the Iberian Peninsula experience an outbreak of seemingly unrelated supernatural phenomena that only later take on greater significance in veteran director George Sluizer's 2002 seriocomic fantasy The Stoneraft. Joana (Ana Padrao), Jose (Gabino Diego), Maria (Iciar Bollain), and Joaquim (Diogo Infante) are all experiencing events they cannot logically explain: A flock of starlings follows Jose everywhere he goes, while Joana creates small fault lines with her walking stick; Joaquim not only raises an impossibly large stone with only his hands but also throws it out to sea; while unraveling one sock, Maria discovers the thread has no end. Pedro's (Federico Luppi) -- the fifth stranger -- experience is the most significant, as he alone feels a bizarre tremor that eventually leads to the entirety of Iberia dislodging itself from the rest of the European continent. As the new island begins to drift toward North America and a catastrophic collision appears imminent, the majority of the Spanish and Portuguese populations begin to abandon the renegade land mass. The five prophets, however, seek an answer to all of these puzzling events and are thus drawn together on their mutual quest for truth while preparing for what seems to be an approaching apocalypse. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Spanish director Imanol Uribe examines social upheaval as it relates to a young prepubescent's life in his 2002 coming-of-age tale Carol's Journey. Twelve-year-old Carol (Clara Lago) is accompanying her mother Aurora (Maria Barranco) to Spain to visit her mother's native village as the Civil War is tearing the nation apart. Carol's life is an emotional roller coaster, as her American-born father -- with whom she is extremely close -- has been away for quite some time, serving as a pilot in the International Brigades. Furthermore, Aurora recently received a terminal diagnosis for the illness she has been battling and could die at any moment. As Carol struggles with these issues as well as the acceptance of the new environment she has been cast into, she gains perspective from her gentle grandfather Amalio (Alvaro de Luna) and the village teacher Maruja (Rosa Maria Sarda), as well as an unexpected first love with local boy Tomiche (Juan Jose Ballesta). Adapted from Angel Garcia Roldan's novel A boca de noche, Carol's Journey was an official selection to the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar's first English-language production is a creepy period ghost story that continues in the vein of his earlier art house hit Open Your Eyes (1997). Nicole Kidman stars as Grace, a devoutly religious mother of two ailing children who has moved with her family to a mansion on the English coast while awaiting her husband's return from World War II, though he has been declared missing. Their children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), both suffer from a rare photosensitivity disease that renders them extremely vulnerable to sunlight, prompting Grace's rule of having only one door open in the house at a time. When Anne begins claiming to see ghosts, Grace at first believes her newly arrived family of eccentric servants to be responsible, but chilling events and visions soon lead her to believe that something supernatural is indeed going on. The Others was released only a few months prior to Vanilla Sky (2001), the American remake of Alejandro's Open Your Eyes (1997), ironically starring Kidman's then-estranged husband Tom Cruise. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Romance and murder walk side by side in this psychological drama from Spain. A serial killer has been plying his grisly trade in a small town in Spain, murdering young girls and leaving their bodies in a nearby forest. A police inspector (Miguel Angel Sola) is sent in to investigate -- his first case outside tumultuous Basque County in 14 years. The detective has problems dealing with the stress of his job, and he finds little consolation in his off hours: he's been fighting a drinking problem for some time, and his wife (Charo Lopez) is in a mental hospital after murder threats against him led her to a nervous breakdown. As the inspector looks at the evidence in the latest killing with the help of Ferreras (Chete Lera), the city's coroner, he pays a visit to the school where the victim was studying. There he meets Susana Grey (Adriana Ozores), a teacher and single mother whose husband left her several years earlier to run off with Ferreras' former girlfriend. The inspector and Susana display an immediate interest in each other, and soon find themselves edging into a tentative romance, while the detective tries to stay on the trail of the murderer. Plenilunio was screened in competition at the 2000 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Veteran director Jose Luis Cuerda delivered this sensitive portrait of a child coming of age during a tense political situation just before the Spanish Civil War. On his first day of school, frail eight-year-old Moncho (Manuel Lozano) is so terrified by the imposing figure of his teacher Don Gregorio (Fernando Fernan Gomez) that he flees into the nearby woods. In spite of his authoritarian appearance, the schoolmaster proves to be a kind, free-thinking Republican who teaches Moncho the virtues of being good. The boy is soon spending much of his time with the elderly Gregorio in the Galician countryside, admiring such wonders of nature as the tongue of a butterfly. Other people in young Moncho's world include his down-to-earth mother (Uxia Blanco), his Republican father, and his older brother, who plays the saxophone with a group of local musicians. However, when the Fascists roll into town, the boy's life changes forever. La Lengua de las Mariposas was screened at the 1999 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Lagrimas Negras is a psychological drama about love, but also the story of a young man who leaves his normal existence behind to embark on a journey which ends in violence. The opening sequences show apprentice filmmaker Andres (Fele Martinez) editing a documentary whose images set the bleak tone of the film. He spends a night with Alicia (Elena Anaya), a girl he has known since childhood, and later gets attacked on the street by two young women. His obsessive search for the assailants leads him to one of the women, Isabel (Ariadne Gil), who comes from a wealthy family and suffers from a split personality. Andreas gets involved with her, which totally changes his life until he finds it impossible to live in two different worlds. He is convinced he can help Isabel set her life straight and gives up everything he has to see things through the bitter end. Ariadne Gil's performance is remarkable as the disturbed Isabel and her alter-ego, Ana, but Martinez is weak as Andres. Long dialogue sequences distract the audience from director Franco's main theme -- the damage lurking behind the façade of respectability. The film will be remembered, not so much for its artistic merits, as for the fact that director Ricardo Franco died during the shooting; Fernando Bauluz, his assistant, had to complete the film. Lagrimas Negras was screened as part of the Panorama section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

The line between dreams and reality become increasingly blurred after a womanizing playboy is nearly killed by a jilted lover in Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar's masterful sophomore effort Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). It would seem as if Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) has it all. Handsome, charming, and with money to burn, he can get any girl he wants, and usually does so on a nightly basis. Following a birthday party in which he chats up Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the date of his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez), Cesar is plunged headfirst into a nightmare world when jealous former lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri) swallows a handful of pills and sends her car careening into a cement wall with the terrified playboy as her hapless passenger. With his formerly strikingly handsome face now twisted into a hideous mass of scarred flesh, Cesar's ugly emotions are now externalized for all to see. Pining for a plastic-surgery miracle to return him to his former glory so that he can seek out Sofia and take a chance at real love, he is pleasantly surprised when the doctors make a breakthrough and Sofia accepts him back into her life. Although all seems perfect for the moment, the formerly soulless player finds that this is only the beginning of his increasingly disturbing journey. Why is Sofia changing appearance and turning into Nuria periodically? And why won't the police and his psychiatrist believe Cesar's desperate attempts to rationalize a world that is growing increasingly surreal? Could it have something to do with a doctor Cesar has seen on television who keeps appearing and attempting to help him out of his nightmare? Peeling away at the layers of his subconscious, Cesar begins to realize that reality is no more than a state of mind, and that in order to get his life back he may be forced to take unthinkable measures. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide