Jorge Bolani Movies

Two young people learn about love as politics turn their world upside down in this drama from director Ana Diez. After a long and successful career as a soccer player, Xavi (Nicolas Pauls) retires from the game and moves to Spain, where one day to his surprise he happens upon Rosana (Maria Botto), a friend from his childhood in Uruguay. As Xavi and Rosana catch up on what has happened to them over the past thirty years, they flash back to 1973, when young Xavi (Pablo Arnoletti) and his father Manuel (Emilio Gutierrez Caba), a shoemaker, lived down the street from Rosana (Pia Rodriguez). Rosana's father Severgnini (Mauricio Davub) was the local chief of police, and found himself frequently dealing with military authorities as Marxist rebels began plotting an overthrow of Uruguay's leadership. While Manuel is largely apolitical, he has friends who are fighting with the rebels, and when he's warned of an upcoming action at a soccer match, he packs Xavi off to a cabin in the country, and as word is leaked to Severgnini, he sends Rosana off with him. The two youngsters soon find themselves caught in the web of first love, but as a coup throws all of Uruguay into chaos, the simplicity of their stay in the country proves short lived. Paisito (aka Small Country) was an official selection at the 2008 Malaga Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Directors Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll co-helm the contemporary black comedy Whisky, set in Montevideo, Uruguay. An exercise in straight-faced humor laced with absurdly funny -- yet instantly recognizable -- characters and situations, Whisky travels into the world of Jacobo (Andres Pazos), the owner and proprietor of a sock factory. Trapped in a prison of day-to-day loneliness, Jacobo finds his world turned onto its ear when his freewheeling, toothy-grinned (and infinitely more successful) brother Herman (Jorge Bolani) comes for a visit. Determined to cloak the extent of his misery, Jacobo recruits his assistant at the sock factory, Marta (Mirella Pascual), to pretend to be his wife. Screened in the United States by the Global Film Initiative, as part of its Global Lens Film Series, Whisky earned rave reviews from the BBC, The New York Times, Variety, and many other esteemed publications. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide