Silvia Munt Movies

Paco (Antonio Resines) is an architect and artist of sorts, and although he is married he has affairs that cut a wide swath through the professions: a medical student, a reporter, an actress, a teacher, and others -- and in no case is Paco at a loss for words. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Colometa (Silvia Munt) is an average housewife with two children to care for in the late 1930's, as the Spanish Civil War is starting and her husband goes off to fight. She had been an ordinary woman working in a shop when she met the lively carpenter who married her, and their life together was without major problems. But now she is forced to raise her children under straitened circumstances, and after her husband dies, her life undergoes another major change as she marries for the second time. Underneath Colometa's acquiescent, forebearing exterior must lie just a few discontents, a few unrealized dreams - but they never surface as she blithely moves from one episode in her life to another. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Confusion seems to settle over this drama like dust on a polished surface, until the layers are so thick that nothing is seen clearly any more. Andrés (José Sacristán) goes back to Spain from Mexico because a lawyer has sent for him. Andrés has inherited an enormous piece of property -- an old mansion of a house -- and although his half-brother offers him a good sum of money for the structure, Andrés hesitates. He wants to know more about the circumstances of his father's death which happened when Andrés was six; he is also becoming infatuated with the lawyer's daughter, and some men are threatening him -- men who may or may not be hired by his half-brother. In the end, Andrés fares better than the plot itself. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The Basque country lies around the Gulf of Biscay, and one of its cities, Bilboa, is the setting for this turgid story of political intrigue. The Basque separatist movement has always been a point of contention in Spanish politics and provides the shady backdrop for this story about Lucas (Omero Antonutti), a Basque newspaper reporter who comes home after a long period in Argentina only to land in the middle of a conflict. He is badly beaten up but continues on to get a job with a newspaper unafraid of reporting on the factions that are a part of the Basque political scene. His lack of temerity, if not discretion, is certain to get him into even more trouble. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The first half of this ponderous drama shows a six-year-old girl whose life is overshadowed by the impending birth of a baby boy, of whom she is intensely jealous. Some months after he is born, undetected, she quietly smothers him to death. In the second half, she is nineteen and wants to leave the bosom of her family but is financially unable to do so. In the final moments of the film, a melodramatic turn of events fuels a reconciliation between the disaffected young woman and her mother. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

A young woman's passion forms the basis of this erotic Spanish drama adapted from a popular novel by Antonio Gala. The night before Desideria's marriage, her girl friends give her some valuable advice on sex. The marriage takes place, and while it is generally happy, her husband Ramiro suffers from sexual dysfunction and Desideria is frustrated. The two end up on holiday in Istanbul with two friends. Desideria falls madly in love with the sensual ambiance of the ancient, teeming city. She begins a passionate affair with a handsome Turkish guide, Yaman. Upon her return home, she learns that she is pregnant. Ramiro agrees to support the child, but unfortunately it dies in infancy and the grieving Desideria flees for Istanbul to find her lover. She finds him and they renew their torrid affair. Later she learns some distressing things about Yaman, but this does not stop her from becoming his sexual slave and a call girl for wealthy carpet sellers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The thriller Asuntos Internos concerns a doctor who must go on the run after the assassination of a politician who he physically resembles. The doctor finds that he has a list of numerous politicians who are on the take, and his life is endangered because of it. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

After journalist Juan (Kike Diaz de Rada) is shot in Colombia, his stockbroker sister Marta (Silvia Hunt) arrives to identify the body. At Juan's house, edgy Oscar (Diego Achury) arrives on a scooter, kidnaps her, and takes her to his shack in the squalid Bogota slums where she meets his sister Jenny (Valeria Santa) and becomes involved in their lives. Shown at the 1997 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Two adults look back to their youth and discover how a seemingly minor incident shaped their lives in this drama from Spain. Lucia (Silvia Munt) is a woman in her early forties who moves back to the neighborhood where she grew up, taking over a house her grandparents once owned. To her surprise, she discovers that Juan (Gary Piquer), whom she knew as a teenager, is living across the street in the home where his grandparents once lived, and seeing one another brings back memories of their youth. In 1974, young Juan (Andres Gertudix) and Lucia (Cristina Brondo) are growing up in Madrid as Franco's regime is coming to a close. Juan, from a poor family, is infatuated with Lucia, and when he helps nurse an injured dog back to health, she starts to take an interest in him, though she already has a boyfriend, the wealthy Nacho (Eloy Azorin). Juan asks Lucia to attend a concert with him by Catalan vocalist Joan Manuel Serrat, but on the day of the show, Juan is forced to work late at his job; when he finally arrives at the concert hall, he discovers Lucia has already left to spend the evening with Nacho. Twenty-five years later, Lucia and Juan are both lonely and emotionally isolated, and they wonder how much impact this event had on their later relationships. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

As a dog is abandoned one snowy winter night near a local bus stop, three characters awaiting the bus do their best to ignore the situation. Thus begins Judith Colell's film 53 dias de Invierno (53 Winter Days). The film subsequently delves into the life of each passenger, and becomes a trio of stories on conflict - the first psychological, the second emotional, and the third social. Because Colell recounts the tales one-after-another but never intersects or overlaps the narratives per se, her film becomes a foray into the hidden stories that lurk behind the eyes of three strangers, whom we might come across on any random street corner - and who only happen, cosmically, to be sharing the same bus stop at the same moment but may never know one another. In the psychological segment, we meet Mila (Mercedes Sampietro), a local teacher reeling from an assault at the hands of a student, who has taken a yearlong sabbatical to recover; the arc of her story involves her gradual attainment of self-assertion and courage. Segment number two - the segment on emotional conflict - follows Valeria (Aina Clotet), a cellist immersed in an adulterous relationship with her married professor, Hugo (Joaquim de Almeida). The instructor decides to break off the relationship but sends his wife to do the dirty work; meanwhile, Valeria's mother (Silvia Munt) sits at home and struggles to contend with her husband's abandonment of her. And in the third segment (which pertains to social conflict), married security guard Celso (Brendemuhl), struggles to make ends meet - a goal that looms impossible as he discovers his wife, Angela's, (Maria Pau Pigem) expectancy of twins. He foolhardily tries to pocket a necklace from the department store where he works, as a gift for his wife, but is promptly discovered, fired, and thrown out onto the streets - where the terror of confessing his misdeeds to Angela keeps him from heading home. Gemma Ventura penned the script. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide