Elena Irureta Movies

Based on a true story, Flores de Otro Mundo is a film about rural life in present-day Spain. A little village with no women and no future organizes a big bachelors' party to which all the single women of the neighborhood are invited. Patricia from the Dominican Republic who has no ID, Milady from Havana who is dying to travel all around the world and Basque Mariroso find themselves on the 'bus of hope' chartered by the village. What follows is a story of social integration and male/female relationships. Director Iciar Bollain is well-known for her career as a leading actress in over 15 films, particularly Victor Erice's El Sur, Manuel Gutierrez Aragon's Malaventura, and Ken Loach's Land and Freedom. Her first film, Hola, Estas sola? (1995), won several international awards. The film was screened in the International Critics' Week of the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

Featuring plenty of two-fisted action with romantic and political overtones, this intelligent thriller from Spanish director Daniel Calparsoro is set in the Basque region of northernmost Spain and centers on the clash between two Basque terrorists whose relationship becomes strained when the female starts refusing to kill their enemies. Unfortunately, for someone like her, leaving terrorism can be as dangerous as remaining in the fray. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Ismael ( Karra Elejalde) is a thief who, as this thriller opens, is robbing the home of a woman painter. When she unexpectedly returns while he is riffling through her possessions, he kills her without a second thought. At some point as he is escaping the scene, however, he discovers that the painter's daughter has witnessed the whole thing. Ten years later, he spies a young woman (Ana Alvarez) on the streets and feels certain that this is the one woman who could put him into prison. He kidnaps her, only to discover that she is permanently crazed, and has no capacity for doing much. Nonetheless, he keeps her tied up in a bed upstairs, much to the irritation of his girlfriend (Lio), who soon takes matters into her own hands. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This is the fascinating study of a woman in early colonial-era Spain who suffers from the usual grievance of women of that period -- a profound lack of choices. On reaching maturity, she has exactly two: get married to someone of her family's choosing, or become a nun. However, noblewoman Catalina de Erauso was not happy with those choices to begin with, though she chooses the nun option, and after the nun she has fallen in love with dies, she escapes the convent dressed as a man. Then she enters the Spanish military, travels to the New World, and fends off advances from women who find "him" irresistible. Since this is an era when women's cross-dressing can result in charges of heresy or the death penalty, what happens next is truly amazing. When she is finally revealed as a woman, the King of Spain asks to meet with her. Instead of killing her, he grants her a pension, the rank of lieutenant in the Spanish army, and gives her lifelong permission to dress as a man. It may appear to viewers that two different women play Catalina. This is correct: one plays her when dressed as a woman, and Esperanza Roy plays her in male attire. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi