Sergi Mateu Movies

An aging artist and a young prostitute fight for survival as their realities begin to shift. Homero is a successful artist from Querétaro. He's in his late forties when he discovers that he has inherited a rare form of blindness that will gradually steal the primary colors from his vision before robbing him of sight altogether. Accepting of his fate yet unwilling to let go of the art that has given his life so much meaning, Homero attempts to stay connected to the world by adopting a stray dog, talking with prostitutes, and memorizing texts to recite to his blind father. In the process of committing those texts to memory, Homero falls deeply in love with his reading instructor, a pretty nun named Irma. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Mei is abandoned by her mother -- a famous prostitute -- at the China Galleon, a former railway station in the Mexican desert that has been converted into a whorehouse. Mei's mother has left for the United States, and she's left her daughter to work as a servant in exchange for food and lodging for her and her elderly grandparents. In order to earn some extra cash, Mei begins raising moths and sewing their elaborate wing patterns as embroidered works. She gets along well with the prostitutes, and before long, she's fallen in love with a handsome young store clerk. Later, when Homero is almost completely blind, a sympathetic taxi driver offers to take him to the China Galleon. There, kindred spirits Homero and Mei will meet either by fate, or by chance. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In this atmospheric psychological thriller from Spain, Lamarca (Carmelo Gomez) is a private detective who has been haunted by vivid dreams of his own death. One day, a wealthy gentleman named Eduardo (Sergi Mateu) hires him to trail his wife, Sofia (Maria Casal), who has not been herself since the death of her mother. Lamarca monitors her activities with a camcorder for several days, then sends a cassette of highlights to Eduardo. However, the tape falls into Sofia's hands by mistake. Enraged, she contacts Lamarca under an assumed name and hires him to keep watch on her. Sofia starts playing to the camera, and draws the detective into her web, leading to a dangerous relationship between the two. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In 1939, Ramon (Jacques Penot) was a young man, caught up in his Barcelona family's involvement on the Republic side in the brutal Spanish Civil War. He and his family fled into exile ahead of Franco's troops. Now it is many years later, and he has come back to see how his old homestead fared in the intervening years. The only person he can find who is able to remember those years clearly is his family's old butler Claudio (Vittorio Gassman). This film is a sequel to the 1975 film by director Jaime Camino, Largas Vacaciones del 36. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Not surprisingly, the Spanish Estacion Central takes place in large part in a busy railroad terminal. Here is where a woman is murdered, and here is where Barcelonan photographer Feodor Atkine happens to snap a picture of the dirty deed. It would be a simple matter for the photographer to turn his evidence over to the police. Unfortunately, he has retained too many ties to too many underworld figures, and thus can't go to the cops without being suspected of the murder himself. There are several neat Hitchcock-like touches to be found in Estacion Central, most of them in the pulse-racing closing scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This suspenseful Italian crime drama is set in a Colombian river town and chronicles the series of events that led up to murder. Based on a novel by distinguished author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the tale begins in the present as a middle-aged doctor returns to the village after a twenty-year absence to investigate the murder that occurred just before he left. A flashback ensues. All the trouble began when a wealthy general's son came to town searching for a bride. He found an appropriate girl and was very happy until he discovered that his bride was not a virgin. In a terrible rage he sent the poor girl back to her family where her father beat her into revealing her lover's name. Her twin brothers then set out to punish the guilty fellow, a much-despised womanizer. Though the entire town knew that the brothers planned to kill him, no one intervened. Strangely, the victim died without a fight. The story jumps back to the present to witness the return of the general's son. He runs into his former fiancee and quietly hands back all of the letters she had written him over the years. Not a single one is opened. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Captain Luis Dantas (Patrick Bauchau) is the escaped military officer found murdered in this often surrealistic crime drama. Inspector Elias (Raul Solnado) is called on to investigate the man's death, and the story is told by the sleuth in narrative form with the help of flashbacks. The inquiry leads to Mena (Assumpta Serna), the sexually vibrant daughter of a wealthy countess who was romantically involved with Dantas. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi