Pilar Lopez de Ayala Movies

A youthful foreigner sits sketching the diners of an outdoor café in hopes of finding the women he met there years before in director José Luis Guerín's languid, sun-soaked tale of longing. It was a long time ago that the artist met a mysterious beauty named Sylvia, and the memory of the girl has lingered in his mind ever since. Perhaps if he can capture the movements of the patrons in this quaint European café he can recognize the woman he seeks. Then, at once, the artist believes he has found Sylvia. Setting out into the streets in pursuit of a fading memory, he vows that this time he won't let love slip through his fingers. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

With his gentle ensemble comedy Bienvenido a casa (aka Welcome Home), Spanish director David Trueba meditates on one man's passage from youth to the emotional maturity of adulthood. In the process, Trueba takes a wise and reflective look at the dynamics of contemporary relationships, romantic and otherwise. Alejo Sauras is Samuel, an aspiring photographer who makes the broad leap from his rural village in the Spanish countryside -- where he lives under the thumb of his domineering mother -- to the wonderland of urban Madrid. He moves in with his girlfriend, Eva (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), and accepts a position as resident photojournalist for a local culture magazine, where his eccentric colleagues include a slightly embittered, blind movie critic (with a blind guide dog), a burnt-out sports columnist, and a depressed vocalist/instrumentalist who pens the music column. Through the various employees, Trueba reveals a spectrum of attitudes toward love and romance. The remainder of the story finds Samuel teaming up with the magazine's reporter, Sandra, for an investigative story on a murder related to human trafficking. Meanwhile, Samuel begins to grapple, privately, with problems in his marital life -- specifically, how to preserve the love, romance, and devotion he feels for Eva (and she for him). Samuel's watchful mother cautions him not to repeat the same mistakes that she once made -- but the past comes back to haunt Samuel in the guise of a fateful encounter with a childhood friend, Nieves. Then, suddenly, Eva announces her pregnancy. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Thornton Wilder's award-winning novel is given a lavish screen adaptation in this historical drama from writer and director Mary McGuckian. In Peru in 1714, a rickety bridge collapsed as five people were attempting to cross, forcing them to plunge to their deaths. Brother Fray Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) is a Franciscan monk who has been given the duty of looking into the tragedy by the archbishop of Lima (Robert De Niro), and to learn what he can about the victims. It is Juniper's belief that these particular people died for some reason, and that it is his duty to determine why God chose these five people to perish, while others in the vicinity survived. After five years, Juniper delivers his findings to the archbishop as well as the viceroy of Peru (F. Murray Abraham), as Juniper tells them of the lives of the troubled Dona Maria (Kathy Bates), the nun Pepita (Adriana Dominguez), warm-hearted Uncle Pio (Harvey Keitel), street kid-turned-actress La Perichola (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), and others involved in the tragedy. The Bridge of San Luis Rey also features Geraldine Chaplin, John Lynch, and brothers Mark Polish and Michael Polish. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Spanish drama takes an unblinking look at the grim realities of life among Madrid's economically and spiritually underprivileged underclass. David (Unax Ugalde) is a homeless man who struggles to get by with the help of his friends -- dope-dealing Carlos (Juan Diaz), cheerful but misguided Abundio (Fede Celada), and half-bright Titanlux (Benjamin Seva). One day, David meets a beautiful woman, Maria (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), and is immediately smitten. He sets out to earn her affections, and as Maria is charmed by David's ardor (as well as his poetry), she quits her job at a diner to be with him. David and Maria move in to Carlos's apartment, but Carlos's girlfriend Elena (Beatriz Sanchez) is not at all happy with their presence and asks them to leave. Desperate to earn some money, David makes the acquaintance of Facundo (Antonio Dechent), a high-level drug dealer who supplies Carlos with his product. Facundo recruits David as a new salesman and he starts pushing heroin on the streets, quickly making enough money to afford an apartment for Maria and himself. But Maria is eager to make some extra money of her own, and when she meets Veronica (Beatriz Arguello), a prostitute living in their building, she follows her lead and is soon turning tricks on the side; when David finds out about her new career, he soon turns to heroin to ease his heartbreak. Bailame El Agua's soundtrack features the song "But By Your Side" by Los Secretos -- grimly ironic, since vocalist Enrique Urquijo, who helped write the song, died of a drug overdose by the time the film appeared in Spanish theaters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide