Sarah Halioua Movies

In a time of crisis, a young boy tries to make sense of the fine line between fantasy and reality in this drama from Spain. Nicolas (Ricardo Darin) is a toy designer who has married Ingrid (Irene Jacob), a scientist studying birds who has been raising her son Raul (Victor Valdivia) on her own since her husband was killed while serving in Iraq. Nicolas and Raul develop a close bond, and when the boy asks his new step-father about why his dad died, he tells the youngster stories about the fairies that be believed guided the world when he was a boy. Nicolas also shows Raul the shack he built in the woods where he used to go when he was troubled as a kid. While Nicolas's relationship with Ingrid falls apart, he remains close to Raul. One night, Nicolas befriends Sezar (Bebe), a clerk at a grocery store who is beaten when her unscrupulous boss is attacked by a gang of toughs while driving her home. With nowhere else for her to stay, Nicolas takes Sezar back to his shack so she can get a good night's sleep and clear her mind after the trauma. However, when Raul happens by the shack the next morning, he doesn't know what to make of its new occupant until he decides Sezar is one of the fairies Nicolas once believed in. La Educacion de las Hadas (aka The Education of Fairies) was adapted from the popular novel by Didier Van Cauwelaert). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Juan Carlos Cremata's comic look at how the Cuban government affects its citizens, Nada + (Nothing More), is a film about a female postal worker. Thais Valdes plays the woman who dreams of living with her mother and father in Miami while dealing with her horrible boss (Daisy Granados). She livens up her existence by romantically responding to the correspondence she is supposed to deliver. Nothing More was screened during the Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Argentine director Alejando Agresti directed this surreal, allegorical Argentine-French-Dutch- Spanish comedy-drama. Winner of the "Golden Shell Grand Prize" at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival, the absurdist tale is set during the '70s. Young Buenos Aires cabdriver Soledad (Vera Fogwill), tired of fending off molesting passengers and dealing with her exploitative boss, keeps driving her cab straight out of the city and into the mountains, arriving at a remote and dusty Patagonian village, Rio Pico. The town's only contact with the outside world is a cinema which shows film reels out of sequence or upside-down -- as referenced in the title's reversal of Gone With the Wind. This has impacted on local inhabitants, causing them to speak in non sequiturs. Soledad checks into an inn run by Doña Maria (Angela Molina), and when locals find out she was a journalism student, they ask her to host their newsreels about life in Rio Pico. Her new job as news anchor leads to a romance with film critic Pedro (Fabian Vena). Doña Marie finds love blossoming when faded French film star Edgar Wexley (Jean Rochefort) arrives in town as a result of massive amounts of fan mail. Village scientist Antonio (Ulises Dumont) makes regular jaunts to Buenos Aires with his discoveries (such as the theory of relativity), only to be told these were previously discovered in earlier decades. Change comes to Rio Pico when electricity and television arrive, and the town's magical, idiosyncratic appeal begins to fade. Also shown at the 1998 Chicago Film Festival. Spanish and French dialogue. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi