Ángela Molina

A woman losing her grip on her sanity discovers that the caring stranger who comes to her aid may ruin her life in this thriller. Fernanda Segovia (Cuca Escribano) and Enrique Gonzalvo (Fele Martinez) are a pair of editors and literary agents who have guided the career of writer Camila Ponte (Julieta Cardinali), transforming her into one of Europe's leading literary celebrities on the strength of her wildly successful first novel. Camila has been working on her second book, but stress, depression and writers' block have stalled the project, and Fernanda and Enrique fear Camila is on the verge of an emotional collapse. A benefactor arrives at Camila's doorstep in the form of Vera Galindo (Ana Torrent), a keen admirer of her work who offers to take her away from the pressure of life in the city. Vera escorts Camila to a beautiful hotel in a small country town, where innkeeper Palmira (Angela Molina) offers her customers peace, quiet and solitude. Camila thrives in her new surroundings, and Fernanda and Enrique are happy to hear that she's become newly productive since getting away from it all. But Fernanda and Enrique soon learn Vera is not as benevolent as she seemed -- she has evidence that proves Camila's first novel was actually the work of her father, and that the successful author is in fact a fraud. 14, Fabian Road was written and directed by Jaime de Arminan; it was his first feature film since El Palomo Cojo in 1995. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore returns to the helm for this suspenseful thriller concerning a young Ukrainian prostitute-turned-cleaning woman named Irina (Kseniya Rappoport). Years ago, Irina was drawn into an international prostitution ring before being brutalized by a man named Mold (Michele Placido) who also killed her boyfriend. Flash-forward to the present, and Irina is a humble cleaning woman in a building owned by jewelers. Though her appearance would suggest poverty, Irina always has a sizable wad of cash in her pocket and lives in a large apartment across the street from the loudly dysfunctional Adacher family. Gradually, the mousy cleaning woman works her way into the family home, befriending the parents (Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino) and becoming a trusted confidante to their daughter Thea (Clara Dossena). As her relationship with the family deepens, her motivations for getting so close become frighteningly clear. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

For her sophomore feature, El Triunfo (aka El Triunfo: The Beat of the Streets), filmmaker Mireia Ros (La Moños, 1997) crafts a somewhat gentle, evocative crime drama -- a period piece -- laden with heavy doses of colorful Spanish rumba music and dance, but undergirded with the ever-present threat of orgiastic violence. The narrative unfolds in the mid-'80s, in a nameless Spanish city overruled by thick ethnic gangs of Arabic and African extraction. A quartet of young friends, Nen (Antonio Fernández Montoya), Palito (Cheto), Tostao (Francisco Conde), and addict Topo (Javier Ambrossi), share an impassioned desire to use their gifts for rumba dancing as a vehicle out of potential crime and destitution, and thus, out of the city proper, despite their understanding -- on some level -- that this dream is impossible. Conflict brews when the lead character, Nen, enters a volatile love triangle with local girl Susi (Marieta Orozco), who is romantically entangled with Mediano (Miquel Sitjar) -- a gangster's son with ties to the local syndicate head, Gandhi (Juan Diego). Nen soon gets in over his head with Mediano; however, because Gandhi carries a yen for Nen's mother, Chata (a pub owner abandoned by her husband years earlier), the woman is able to use that attraction as a leverage point to save her son. The boy then uncovers the disturbing truth about the reason behind his father's absence. Ros concludes the film with an uplifting rumba number performed by much of the cast at a nuptial celebration. ~ Nathan Southern, 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

A woman finds herself going from having no man in her life to having more suitors than she can handle in this offbeat romantic drama. Rosa (Angela Molina) is an artist in her early forties who is recently divorced and looking for a new relationship. Unfortunately, few immediate prospects are on the horizon, and Rosa spends much of her free time commiserating with her close friend Jaime (Eusebio Poncela), a gay actor her own age. After consulting Andronica (Julieta Serrano), a fortune teller, Rosa is told that relationships with three different men are on the horizon for her, and soon she finds herself falling for Gustavo (Daniel Freire), an architect from Argentina. While in Spain, Gustavo is staying at a hotel run by Greta (Mirtha Ibarra), who is the unwitting center of a web of romantic entanglements; her daughter, Ana (Maria Isasi), is involved with Juan (Enrique Alcides), a delivery boy for a pizza parlor who also has his eye on Rosa, while Greta's ex-husband (Bob Wilson) is also hoping to win Rosa's heart, in his case through poetry. Sagitario was the first feature film from Vicente Molina Foix, a noted novelist and film critic in his native Spain. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The troubled career of blacklisted director Herbert Biberman, who endured a considerable struggle to make the 1954 pro-Labor film Salt of the Earth, provides the centerpiece for this historical drama. The film opens at the 1937 Academy Awards, where Biberman's wife, Gale Sondergaard (Greta Scacchi), wins the first ever "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar. Although the anti-Fascist sentiment in her acceptance speech gets her labeled a "commie" by some observers, she and Biberman (played here by Jeff Goldblum) are placed under contract at Warner Bros. Ten years later, with Cold War paranoia growing, a group of predominantly Jewish Hollywood directors -- Biberman, Sondergaard, Danny Kaye, and Dalton Trumbo among them -- are labeled Communists and questioned before Congress. Refusing to name names, Biberman is thrown in prison for six months; his wife's similar refusal to testify severely threatened her career as well. After his release from prison, Biberman, no longer able to work in Hollywood, strikes out on his own with other blacklistees, producer Paul Jarrico (John Sessions) and writer Michael Wilson (Geraint Wyn Davies), to make Salt of the Earth. Biberman's production is far from easy, however, as it comes under attack from both the FBI and redneck vigilantes. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This gentle Italian drama is based upon the 1919 autobiographical novel by Federico Tozzi. The film tells the story of teenagers Ghisola and Pietro whose closeness is born of the pain the two experience in their daily lives. Ghisola, only 14-years old, must work in the fields away from her family. Pietro is emotionally abused by his father. When his father discovers their mutual affection, he sends Ghisola away. Pietro does not see her again until he is an adult. She has changed. Now pregnant and alone, Ghisola tries to seduce Pietro so he will marry her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Bear witness to the rise of the most corrupt and ruthless ruler ever to preside over the Roman Empire as filmmaker Paul Marcus tells the tale of Nero's unlikely ascent to the throne, and his historical fall at the hands of his own vengeful kingdom. After murdering his sister's husband on grounds of conspiracy, the increasingly incoherent Caligula exiles his grieving sibling and sets into motion a devious plan that will one-day find her son Lucius presiding over all of Rome. Beset on all sides by tyranny and bloodlust, Lucius rises to power as Nero while facing the constant wrath of all who oppose his legacy. His paranoia soon reaching a fever pitch, Nero struggles to maintain power as his army, his people, and his own mother, ultimately turn against him. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This, the second of 1992's 500th anniversary Christopher Columbus films (the first being Warner Bros. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery), adheres to the historical facts of Columbus's (Gerard Depardieu) possessed quest to discover the New World, and his solicitation of Queen Isabella (Sigourney Weaver) to gain the necessary funding. Despite travelogue-quality footage replete with beautiful scenery of Caribbean islands and a massive cast, this film tends to plod along with too predictable a plot and a mis-cast Columbus. Depardieu -- a very capable French actor speaking English and playing an Italian -- becomes perhaps the movie's bright spot (even if at his own expense) as he laughably struggles with line after line. Michael Wincott puts forth a worthy performance as a nasty Spanish nobleman whose mistreatment of the natives results in an open rebellion. ~ All Movie Guide