Francisco Algora Movies
- 2002
José Luis Garci's romantic drama Story of a Kiss follows two different stories that take place decades apart from each other. Julio (Carlos Hipolito) attends the funeral of the uncle who raised him. After reminiscing with his uncle's friends, Julio remembers his childhood. At that time, his Uncle Blas (Alfredo Landa) fell in love with a much younger women who made him realize how dispassionate his life had become. The adult Julio also attempts to romance a fellow teacher. Director Garci previously made the Oscar winner Starting Over. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Ana Fernandez, (more)
Following his award-winning Familia (1997), 30-year-old writer-director Fernando Leon de Aranoa set this Spanish drama in Madrid's grim working-class fringe neighborhood. Caught in the concrete jungle, 15-year-old friends Rai (Crispulo Cabezas), Manu (Eloi Yebra), and Javi (Timy) pass the summer dreaming of girls and sandy beaches. Javi is surprised by the sexual interest of his pals in his sister Susi (Marieta Orozco). Minus a vehicle, Manu struggles to keep his pizza delivery job. Entering a contest for an exotic vacation, Rai instead wins a jet ski -- which is stolen before he manages to profit by selling it. Manu and his father (Francisco Algora) lie about Manu's absent junkie brother, while Javi's mother (Alicia Sanchez) gets a court restraint to deal with Javi's violent father (Enrique Villen). The film features a soundtrack of Spanish rap and rock. At the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival, Leon de Aranoa received a "Best Director" award plus two other awards for screenwriting. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cruspulo Cabezas, Timy, (more)
- 1989
For some reason, the enigmatic Xenia (Themis Bazaka) feels she must give birth to her child in the mountainous country of Andalusia in Southern Spain. As she travels to her rendezvous with birth, she hooks up with a young actor (Denis Podalides) on his way to an audition there. His car has broken down, and he has accepted a ride from her. The two converse about life, art, the light in the Mediterranean, etc. As they travel, Xenia begins to feel the first pangs of birth, and the young man learns how to care for another person. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Themis Bazaka, Denis Podalydès, (more)
- 1989
Even a press conference with the director after the showing of Diaro De Invierno at the San Sebastian Film Festival failed to give any insight to this confusing avant garde feature. A snake charmer (Francisco Algora) is held in a jail cell. A mother leads a double life of saint and harlot. A man who practiced euthanasia dies in a fire. The end result is a pretentious, self-indulgent film that supposedly is seen from the perspective of someone in a police station. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eusebio Poncela, Fernando Rey, (more)
- 1988
Aguirre (Omero Antonutti) leads 300 Spanish soldiers and 300 natives in his search for the legendary land of El Dorado in Peru during the year 1560. The expedition is attacked by hostile jungle tribes before mutiny breaks out among the soldiers. The unit is forced to kill and eat their horses to survive, but the leaders of the expedition are also targeted for assassination. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- R
Antonio (Jose M. Sacristan) is a vagabond traveler who hitches a ride into a small town. He takes a job in a restaurant before landing a better job in the local movie theater. Antonio remembers the owner as the woman who employed his acting troupe years before when he was a young child. He later gets mixed up in a plot to steal a valuable painting from a convent. The English title of Cara de Acelga is Spinach Face. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José M. Sacristán, Fernando Fernán Gómez, (more)
- 1985
Hypocrisy and betrayal are the two dramatic pivots in this effective, emotionally gripping tragedy about the life and death of Paco (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish peasant who had been fighting against the feudal landowning system that kept farmers impoverished. Paco's life is told in flashbacks by a priest (Antonio Ferrandis) who is seen officiating at an anniversary mass attended by three wealthy landowners and no one else. The priest recalls Paco's baptism, his communion, his marriage ceremony and then his work for the peasants as he advocated and led them in a land-reform movement. The rest of the story will rest heavy on the priest's conscience, as he looks out at his empty church. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernando Fernán Gómez
- 1984
This vicious crime thriller tells the story of Fanny (Fanny Cottençon), a cold-blooded woman who has served several prison sentences for petty crimes. Her hatred for Andrés (Bruno Cremer), an even more brutal policeman who once knocked out her teeth, is the emotional axis around which the story evolves. Andrés also killed Fanny's lover, and because of his violation of police regulations in his abusive treatment of Fanny, he was thrown out of the police force and now works as a guard for an armored car company. One day Fanny is told that Andrés is in Barcelona again, and she drops everything to go to the city with a few friends and rob the armored car that he is guarding. Her plans work out, and she exacts revenge on Andrés, but does not kill him. A mistake, perhaps, because he is soon back in full force against her and her companions -- and the gore and brutality continue with no hope of resolution, not even at the end of the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fanny Cottençon, Bruno Cremer, (more)
- 1982
Based on a 1943 book of the same title by Camilo José Cela, Colmena features the comings and goings of a wide variety of characters, all trying to survive in a poverty-stricken Madrid during World War II. Rather than feature any single story line, these people from all walks of life cross paths almost randomly as they come to a café to sip their one cup of coffee and work on a book, or pick up a prostitute, or get their shoes shined, or play billiards, or just warm themselves on a cold winter's day. This primary setting is complemented by a brothel where a dirt-poor journalist sleeps if there is a room available that night, while during the day he tries to make ends meet one way or another. The demeanor of the people in the café or in the brothel effectively conveys the atmosphere of a long-lost era that may have had hardships but also brought a subtle sense of camaraderie to very disparate human beings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victoria Abril, Ana Belén, (more)
- 1981
A series of vignettes is woven into a larger story in this first film to be written and directed by Juan Minon and Miguel A. Trujillo. A writer who works in a bookshop to earn a living meets a wealthy American named Kargus looking for talent to ensconce in his projected art colony in the Gilbert Islands. In order to convince the American to take him on as a good prospect, the writer promotes his own stories -- the vignettes seen in the film. One story is about a young man trying to impress his girlfriend with his new car, a car he indirectly borrowed from a rental agency. His efforts to hide the rental sign on top of the car lead to various comical posturings. Other vignettes are from the era of the Spanish Civil War, including one about two people trying to survive by hunting cats and killing them to sell to butchers. Another vignette shows pro-Franco activists eradicating anti-Franco graffiti in Madrid. Each vignette stands on its own, without an underlying theme to tie the group together. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Adriani, Francisco Algora, (more)
- 1979
The final journey of war-weary members of the a remnant of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is explored in this dramatic movie, based on the novel Las Buenas Intenciones by Max Aub. The six in this story are fleeing to the Mediterranean town of Alicante in Valencia, in hopes of being able to escape into exile from there. They meet plenty of war-time action along the way, and their despair at losing the war and having to flee Franco's main army is evident. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilina Ross, Francisco Algora, (more)
- 1978
A village girl with ambitions has schemed and connived to get to the big cities in Colombia. Though she is beautiful and finds plenty of romance, nothing quite works out. She even tries prostitution for a while. Eventually, she decides that her discontent has nothing to do with the city and that she's a country girl at heart. She hitches a ride in the empty trailer of a tractor-trailer truck going back to her village. There she finds a dejected American man (Stuart Whitman), whose wife has just died. The two of them converse and get to know one another and even make love. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, Laura Gemser, (more)
- 1978
In this non-narrative film by first-time director Rafael Gordon, a young limousine driver and his friends discuss their qualms about the society they live in, while they drift from situation to situation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Verónica Forqué, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1977
Set in 1920s Barcelona, this Spanish film explores the events leading up to an assassination attempt made on the life of dictator Primo de Rivera by an upper-class transvestite homosexual with anarchist political views. Scenes from his "characteristic" lifestyle are reconstructed for the movie, as well has his crises of conscience: He has decided to kill the dictator, and at the same time has decided to tell his much-beloved mother that he is a homosexual. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José M. Sacristán, Paco Algora, (more)
- 1976
On long summer weekends, Juan (Alfredo Landa) is in the habit of hopping on his motorcycle in Madrid and driving for many hours to Torremolinos, a popular hangout for foreign tourists. There, he indulges in his fondness for romancing foreign girls. In this movie, which won a Gold Prize at the 1977 Moscow Film Festival, the people he meets on his journey form a microcosm of modern Spain. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Paco Algora, (more)
- 1973
This Spanish drama explores an encounter between a well-educated mountain-climber and a young shepherdess who has been kept mute by her suffocating family. Lost during a climbing expedition, Don Ramiro (Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez) finds shelter and safety through the help of the speechless girl (Kili Manyer). Though her brother is deaf and half-mad, there is nothing wrong with the girl, and Ramiro begins to teach her how to speak. This interferes with the established pattern preferred by the girl's family, and Ramiro is accused of rape and carted off to prison. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
