Aitana Sanchez-Gijon Movies

Chusa is a fashionable and party-loving denizen of modern-day Madrid. Some of her flashy lifestyle is paid for by her amateur hashish-smuggling operation. Like many others, she often flies down to Morocco to score some of this marijuana-derived drug and then smuggles it back in various places on her body. She would like to smuggle more but needs a reliable courier. One candidate for the operation is Elena, an old friend of hers. However, there is just one problem: Elena is a virgin, and at least one of her body orifices won't accommodate much of the drug. Chusa asks her policeman boyfriend to help Elena past this handicap, and he reluctantly agrees. Unfortunately for her, the two friends become much friendlier than she had intended, and soon she is on her own, her smuggling plans in a shambles. When she gets to Morocco, she experiences even more setbacks. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Noted Spanish director Vicente Aranda explores female sensuality and male vanity in this slick erotic thriller. Stunningly beautiful Carmen (Aitana Sanchez Gijon) works at an orange packing factory and is engaged to be married to Antonio (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), a long-distance trucker who works for the same company. One day during a freak rainstorm, Antonio happens upon an accident involving one of his plant's fellow truck drivers. When he helps sift through the debris, he discovers a photograph of some guy cozying up to his bikini-clad fiancée. Confronted with the incriminating picture, she admits to having dated the man a long time ago, but this does little to assuage Antonio's mounting jealousy. When he interrogates Carmen's best friend, he learns little more than that the man's name is Jose. Antonio's quiet stewing over his girlfriend's romantic history suddenly explodes into violence, threatening their impeding marriage. Carmen maintains that she only wants to get pregnant and be a good wife for him. Antonio eventually calms down, apologizes profusely, and the two get married. Yet in spite of numerous lovingly photographed rounds of post-marital sex, Antonio's jealousy over Jose continues to torment him. He ultimately finds Jose and forces his wife to meet her ex-flame. The emotional fallout from the encounter shocks all involved. Celos was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Omero Antonutti is divorced, and has a grown son who a young, upwardly-mobile professional person (yuppie) and an ex-wife who regularly sharpens her tongue on him. These developments have only served to sharpen the cynicism he naturally has as a private investigator, constantly exposed as he is to the shabbiest human behavior. However, when a beautiful and obviously wealthy woman asks him to track down her second boyfriend on behalf of herself and her first boyfriend, his interest is aroused. The absent boyfriend is a professional model from Greece who is also a painter. The woman believes he may have disappeared somewhere in Barcelona. His investigation exposes the P.I. to a world of sexual and other eccentricities which even he had never imagined existed anywhere, much less in his hometown. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This action-filled Spanish melodrama takes dramatic license with the facts surrounding the illegal slave trade in early nineteenth century Cuba. It is 1820 and Amelia has recently been wed to Ton, a Cuban plantation owner whom she barely knows as part of a business contract. With Ton's sinister best friend as her chaperone, Amelia reluctantly leaves Spain. During the long sea voyage, Alfons leads a mutiny and the ship detours to Africa where they fill up the hold with slaves. In Havana, Amelia is appalled to find her husband has been sleeping with slaves and colonial wives. For revenge, Amelia attempts to expose Alfons' and Ton's illegal activities to the authorities and to their families. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Gabriele Salvatores' kidnapping drama lo Non Ho Paura (I'm Not Scared) is about a boy dealing with issues he cannot quite comprehend. While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) discovers Filippo (Mattia Di Perro), who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice (Giorgio Careccia) nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget whatever he saw. I'm Not Scared was screened at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

This lively western from Spain centers on the exploits of a wealthy young troublemaker who escapes from a Franciscan monastery and teams up with a handsome country boy who has run away from the Army. Together the two try to become outlaws and pose as gang members under the notorious El Argentino, an outlaw who plies his trade upon the border of Portugal and Galicia in northern Spain. The two "bandidos" steal horses and rob a taxman as they flee for the border. Along the way another fellow joins them. Much to their surprise, the fellow turns out to be a female reporter for the New York Times, hoping to interview El Argentino. Unfortunately, the outlaws have never met him. They meet him soon enough when he captures them. Proving to be a vain but basically good-hearted outlaw, he spares them and together they all take off with the Civil Guard hot on their trail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This sophisticated Spanish romantic comedy charts the course of a long-time on-again-off again love affair between Diana Balaguer and Santi Garcia. The story begins at a sumptuous dinner party for the King of Spain. There the beauteous Diana Balaguer makes eye contact with security guard Santi Garcia, and suddenly faints dead away. The story fades from 1996 to 1966, and the film switches from color to black-and-white. Diana is a teenager with a terrible crush on Beatle John Lennon. She sneaks into his room and hides under the bed when Lennon arrives with a groupie. Diana is shocked to find herself hiding beside the handsome Santi. As Lennon and the groupie begin making out, so do the youngsters beneath them. Thus begins their sporadic affair. Over its course, Diana reveals her ambitions to become a society hostess. Unfortunately, Santi simply wants to settle down, get married and raise children. Their differences cause the lovers to drift apart. By the time the film returns to the present tense, both lovers have undergone major changes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Two sisters with very different lives have decidedly different attitudes when they learn of the possible whereabouts of their long-lost mother. Angela (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) is a female police officer who patrols the slums of Barcelona with her partner, Fermin (Santiago Ramos), while Angela's younger sister, Laura (Barbara Goenaga), is a trouble maker and a loner, though her friend Oscar (Unax Ugalde) is secretly in love with her. Laura and Angela's mother disappeared almost a decade ago, but one day Laura receives a message from Scratch (Mario Cocci), a drug dealer from Holland who claims to be in contact with her mom, and has a letter he says she wrote. Laura decides to set out to Holland to find her mother, while Angela tries to convince Laura to stay behind, certain she's being led into a dangerous trap. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this romantic drama, Andres (Miguel Molina) is a young man from Madrid who for years has had his eye on Marga (Nina Ferrer). Andres enjoys feminine companionship with several girlfriends but can't get Marga out of his mind. When the two finally meet, Marga explains her past in a flashback scene in which she admits to being a drunken, unfaithful wife. Andres's friends warn him not to get involved with Marga, but he ignores their advice. Marga and Andres become romantically involved but their future is left uncertain. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The events that led Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to write her horror masterpiece Frankenstein provide the basis of this haunting, romantic drama. The story opens aboard a beat up schooner as it carefully makes its way through a massive broken ice pack near the North Pole. There Shelley writes her fantastic tale and reminisces about the events of the previous summer when she was courted by the poetic Percy Byshe Shelley. They elope and go to Switzerland where they become friends with dashing Lord Byron and his companion Dr. Polidori. Shelley's sister Claire accompanies them and gets romantically entangled with Byron. The group subsequently spends some idyllic almost hedonistic weeks at Byron's villa. Over the next few years, strange, tragic and troubling events occur and whenever they do, Shelley sees her monster lurking in the shadows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this musical drama, a tango tribute set in Buenos Aires of the '30s, factory worker Juanita (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) goes with musician Gustavo (Juan Echanove) who plays in a tango combo with singer Renzo (Dario Grandinetti), known for his resemblance to famed tango superstar Carlos Gardel (who died in a 1935 plane crash). Juanita ditches Gustavo for Renzo, and when Gardel is unable to do a radio commercial, a substitution by Renzo brings enough fame to propel the group on a Latin American tour. Renzo visits a Colombia hotel where Gardel is staying, and when Gardel returns to Argentina, Renzo once again serves as a replacement, this time in a live performance -- but fate steps in as Renzo heads home. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Cuca Canals and director Bigas Luna (Jamon, Jamon) adapted Didier Decoin's novel, winner of the Goncourt Prize, for this period film, a Spanish-French-Italian co-production. French foundry worker Horty (Oliver Martinez), married to Zoe (Romane Bohringer), wins a competition of strength. His prize is a trip to witness the Titanic's launch from Southhampton. At his hotel room, Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) tells him that she is a Titanic chambermaid with nowhere to stay. Although she sleeps in his bed, they don't have sex. When Horty awakens, she's gone. Later, he spots a photographer taking her picture and buys the photograph. Horty returns to France, where he hears rumors that his wife Zoe has been sleeping with the foundry boss. After his drinking buddies find the photo of Marie, they ask him about her, and he begins to fabricate a tale -- seen in flashbacks -- of his encounters with Marie, a story which increases in eroticism as he retells it night after night with increasing theatrical flourishes and embellishments. Southhampton scenes were actually filmed in Trieste. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide