Ángela Molina Movies

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

As adapted from the roman by Antonia Arslan and co-directed by legendary Italian brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, The Lark Farm marks one of the few international features to tackle the Armenian genocide head-on. The story (with its thematic parallels, in the early scenes, to De Sica's 1970 Garden of the Finzi-Continis) concerns the Avakian clan. An Armenian family living an affluent lifestyle and periodically shuttling back and forth between their two comfortable homes, the Avakians feel convinced that the rising tide of Turkish hostility on the horizon means little to them and will scarcely affect their day to day. Indeed, The Avakians ignore the warning signs, and set about preparing for a family reunion with the impending visit of two well-to-do sons - landowner Aram, who resides in Turkey, and Assadour, a physician living in Venice. Lo and behold, these illusions come crashing down when a Turkish military regiment crops up at the house, annihilates every male member of the family and forces the ladies to trek off into the Syrian desert, where they will be left to rot. Meanwhile, a handsome Turkish officer (Alessandro Preziosi) falls for Aram's daughter and makes an aggressive attempt to deliver her and her family from certain death, even as the circumstances surrounding him attest to the astounding difficulty of this goal. ~ Nathan Southern, 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

Carnage, an example of what the French call un film chorale, tells several intertwining stories. In the central tale, a young second-generation bullfighter, Victor (Julien Lescarret), is gored, and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. A little girl, Winnie (Raphaëlle Molinier), sits next to a massive Great Dane and watches the fateful bullfight on television, and becomes obsessed with the bull. A university researcher, Jacques (Jacques Gamblin of Safe Conduct), cheats on his massively pregnant wife, Betty (Lio), who hides a critical fact about her pregnancy from him. Jacques' brother, Luc (Bernard Sens), an amateur taxidermist, lives with their mother, Rosie (Esther Gorintin), who loves him, but withholds a family secret. Winnie's teacher, Jeanne (Lucia Sanchez), struggles to understand her neurotic mother, Alicia (Ángela Molina), when she visits. When her car is dented by a shopping cart, Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni), a struggling actress, meets Alexis (Clovis Cornillac), a suicidal philosopher/skater who offers to lead her to the culprits. Carnage, the debut feature from writer/director Delphine Gleize, won the Sutherland Trophy at the 2002 London Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the 2002 Stockholm Film Festival. It was also shown at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-Vouz with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, 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

An attorney's reckless personal life catches up with him -- or does it? -- in this whodunit. Valerio Grau (Lino Capolicchio) is a successful lawyer with a secret. For the past ten years, he's been having an affair with Lauretta (Angela Molina), who is also an attorney and also married. One day, Valerio suddenly dies after drinking a cup of poisoned coffee, and Lauretta's husband (Giancarlo Monticelli), a judge, immediately becomes a suspect. Pani (Ivano Marescotti), the city attorney assigned to the case, thinks the judge is the most likely culprit, and hires Piero (Carlo Cecchi), a detective struggling to work past a career embarrassment, to find out what he can about the judge. Piero is assigned to work alongside an assistant magistrate (Rinaldo Rocco) who once worked with Valerio and shares Pani's suspicions, but Piero isn't so certain, and he discovers that Lauretta was not the only "other woman" in Valerio's life. ~ 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

Two young men have left their obscure Balkan country to earn some money as "guest workers" in western Europe. On their way back home, they attempt to change trains in Paris but encounter surprising difficulties from the ticket authorities there. It seems that political changes have rendered their homeland nonexistent, and their passports are no good. Before long, they are stranded in Paris without passports, without a country, and soon even their luggage is stolen. Their fumbling efforts to straighten out the mess result in the French press getting into the act, labeling them as Russian spies. The Parisian expatriate community takes them into its bosom, and romance blooms between one of the lads and a Spanish hatmaker, before they finally achieve a (highly improbable) solution for their difficulties. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Although he was once a colonel in Argentina, the principal character in this film is now a wealthy exile living in Paris with his beloved wife, who has been unable to bear children. To fill this void in their lives, he feeds and clothes abandoned children, raising them in his mansion as if they were his own. As would never be the case in real life today, in this fantasized story set in 1925, no one objects to this behavior, and they live pleasantly and enjoyably together. Things grow considerably more animated when a stage magician places his very attractive daughter in the colonel's household, which stirs a lively romantic interest from his boys and from the great man himself. This amiable international production is based on a novel by Jules Supervielle and features performances from three of Europe's best known actors, Marcello Mastroianni, Angela Molina and Michel Piccoli. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The name of mystery writer Edgar Neville may be relatively unknown in the U.S., but his novels have been the source for quite a number of films made in Europe. In this humorous story, set in Madrid, a woman (Angela Molina) standing in the rain is offered rides from two different cars. Either ride she takes will change her life significantly. At this point, the movie backs up and a narrator explains that from here on, the movie will explore both possible fates. The first car is being driven by a wealthy goofball (Imanol Arias) who is considerably older than the woman. If she gets in his car, she will marry him. The second car is being driven by an artist (Antonio Banderas) whom she is attracted to. Oddly, she still winds up marrying the rich guy, but when he dies of a heart attack, she can now look up the artist. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide