Najwa Nimri Movies

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, All Movie Guide

For his sophomore feature film effort, visual artist Julian Schnabel chronicles the life of one of Cuba's most charismatic literary voices, the late Reinaldo Arenas. Working with Arenas' friends and family, Schnabel recounts the author's impoverished rural upbringing and the intense love and support he receives from his mother (played by the director's wife, Olatz Lopez Garmendia). As a young man, Arenas (Javier Bardem) is singled out by his teachers and encouraged to further his skills as a writer -- no easy task, considering the Castro regime's censorship of any work considered to be subversive or anti-authoritarian. Still, the author manages to smuggle his work out of the country through friends, who arrange for one of his novels to be published in France. Not only persecuted for his creative beliefs, the openly gay Arenas is jailed on a bogus sex charge; he escapes internment only to be captured and persecuted later for his contraband dispatches. In 1980, Arenas is finally allowed to leave Cuba for the United States, where he achieves freedom of expression but not prosperity. Schnabel's first film was another portrait of an artist, 1996's Basquiat; Bardem made his name in several of director Pedro Almodovar's Spanish-language productions. Before Night Falls premiered at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, where it received the Best Actor and Grand Special Jury prizes, and made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bardem would go on to receive a host of accolades, including an eventual Best Actor nomination at the 2001 Academy Awards. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

A doctor's past comes back to haunt him in an unexpected way in this modern variation on the classic tale of Faust. Dr. Fausto (Miguel Angel Sola) is a respected oncologist whose career has practically taken over his life; he has no wife or children, and he's barely aware of the fact his beautiful assistant Julia (Najwa Nimri) is obviously in love with him. One day, Fausto finds himself so overwhelmed with his wildly stressful career that be begins pondering suicide as he waits for a train, only to be interrupted by Julia, who brings him the briefcase he left at his office. After boarding his train, the distraught Faust encounters Santos Vella (Eduard Fernandez), who introduces himself as one of Fausto's former patients; after Fausto removed his stomach and informed him that he had but three months to live, Vella opted to stop seeing doctors and ignore their advice -- and he says he's been feeling fine ever since. Despite Vella's contemptuous attitude towards modern medicine, he is both friendly and grateful to Fausto, and insists on giving the doctor a ride after a taxi breakdown leaves Fausto stranded. From then on, Fausto finds he can't get rid of his new friend, no matter how hard he tries -- everywhere he goes, Vella is close behind, and when Faust declares that he needs female companionship instead, Vella arranges for Fausto to spend the evening with Marta (Irene Montala), a prostitute who proves to be similarly unavoidable. Fausto 5.0 was the first motion picture directed and produced by members of La Fura, an acclaimed Spanish theater troupe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The line between dreams and reality become increasingly blurred after a womanizing playboy is nearly killed by a jilted lover in Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar's masterful sophomore effort Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). It would seem as if Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) has it all. Handsome, charming, and with money to burn, he can get any girl he wants, and usually does so on a nightly basis. Following a birthday party in which he chats up Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the date of his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez), Cesar is plunged headfirst into a nightmare world when jealous former lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri) swallows a handful of pills and sends her car careening into a cement wall with the terrified playboy as her hapless passenger. With his formerly strikingly handsome face now twisted into a hideous mass of scarred flesh, Cesar's ugly emotions are now externalized for all to see. Pining for a plastic-surgery miracle to return him to his former glory so that he can seek out Sofia and take a chance at real love, he is pleasantly surprised when the doctors make a breakthrough and Sofia accepts him back into her life. Although all seems perfect for the moment, the formerly soulless player finds that this is only the beginning of his increasingly disturbing journey. Why is Sofia changing appearance and turning into Nuria periodically? And why won't the police and his psychiatrist believe Cesar's desperate attempts to rationalize a world that is growing increasingly surreal? Could it have something to do with a doctor Cesar has seen on television who keeps appearing and attempting to help him out of his nightmare? Peeling away at the layers of his subconscious, Cesar begins to realize that reality is no more than a state of mind, and that in order to get his life back he may be forced to take unthinkable measures. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Stones is a film about shoes which functions on the old Native American proverb, "Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." The shoes, in this case, belong to an ensemble of wacky characters whose lives are anchored to a brothel on the outskirts of Madrid. Adela is a long-suffering madam who must balance whoring with motherhood; Anita is her disabled, dog-obsessed daughter; Joaquin is one of Adela's most loyal clients, a tango-dancing businessman; Maricarmen is a taxi driver who can't get over her husband's death; Isabel is an eccentric rich woman fascinated by a foot-reading fortune teller; and Leire is a washed-up shoe designer. Together, this motley crew struggles to scrape through life and stay happy, learning to look beyond the quality of the shoes that they wear and to appreciate their quirky personality traits. This first feature film by Spanish director Ramón Salazar shows many influences from the films of Pedro Almodóvar, which often feature an ensemble cast in a slice-of-life situation where the rules of the normal world need not apply. ~ Connor McMadden, All Movie Guide

Following up on his 1998 art-house hit Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Julio Medem spins this audacious film about flesh and forgetting. Lucia (Paz Vega) is a young Madrid waitress who is devastated to hear of the death of her old flame Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa). Hoping to flee her troubles, she seeks out a beautiful island paradise her dead lover often talked about. There she meets and befriends Carlos (Daniel Freyre) and Elena (Najwa Nimri) who are also refugees of personal tragedies. Unbeknownst to all of them, the three each have a connection to Lorenzo. Years previously, Elena had a spontaneous fling with Lorenzo on the same island on the beach. Nine months later, she bore his daughter, Luna (Silvia Llanos), but unable to raise a child on her own, she enlisted the help of a nurse, Belen (Elena Anaya). In attempting to reconnect with the child he never knew, Lorenzo had a passionate affair with Belen, one which caused her to neglect Luna, with tragic results. As Lucia slowly learns these details, she recalls the book Lorenzo was writing just before his death, and soon the lines between fact and fiction begin to slip away. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The question as to how far a corporate drone would go to land a high-level position at a multinational corporation is explored in Argentinian director Marcelo Piñeyro's back-stabbing boardroom drama that takes its name from a mysterious human-resources strategy imported from the United States as a means of choosing the best man for the job. As the time for a decision draws near, the streets of Madrid are awash with anti-globalization protesters; and the tension between job applicants Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), Nieves (Najwa Nimri), Fernando (Eduard Fernández), Ana (Adriana Ozores), and Enrique (Ernesto Alterio) comes to a head. As the corporate lackeys engage in an increasingly dehumanizing series of psychological games and scorching betrayals, the choice of who will ultimately take the reins of the coveted position will ultimately depend on which applicant is willing to employ the most diabolical techniques of manipulation. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide