Films: Foreign Films, Documentaries, and Romance

Flores de Otro Mundo (DVD): la participacion de Television Espanola Produccions La Iguana y Alta Films presentan guion, Iciar Boll

En el pequeño pueblo de Santa Eulalia los solteros organizan una fiesta a la que acude un autocar de mujeres casaderas. Damián, Alfonso y Carmelo buscarán establecer relación con Patricia, una muchacha dominicana, Marirrosi, una enfermera de Bilbao y Milady, una joven cubana.

Patricia, a woman from Dominican Republic, needs a home and an economic security that her illegal status in Madrid does not provide her. Milady, twenty, born in Havana and dying to travel the world. Marirosi has a job, a home, and the most complete solitude... just like Alfonso, Damián and Carmelo, men from the St. Eulalia, a village lacking both marrying women and future. A bachelors' party forces the encounter between them and the beginning of this bittersweet story of sharing a living.

Food, Inc. (DVD): Michal Pollan, Eric Schlosser

Documentary - The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business - with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.

Ladron que Roba a Ladron (To Rob a Thief) (DVD):

Two former thieves reunite to rob the biggest thief they know: Moctesuma Valdez, a TV infomercial guru who's made millions selling worthless health products to poor Latino immigrants. When none of their affiliates want to go undercover as day laborers to pull off the heist, the two men turn to the real thing for help.

Love in the Time of Cholera (DVD): Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt, Catalina Sandino Moreno

At the end of the 19th century in Cartagena, a river port in Colombia, Florentino Ariza falls in love at first sight of Fermina Daza. They secretly correspond and she eventually agrees to marry but her father discovers their relationship and sends her to distant relatives. When she returns some years later, Fermina agrees to marry Dr. Juvenal Urbino, her father's choice. Their fifty year marriage is marked by roughly equal amounts of love and anger. Fermina's marriage devastates Florentino, but his mother throws a willing widow into his bed and he discovers that sex is a very good pain reliever. He begins to number and describe each of his women, beginning with #1, the widow, and eventually has over 600 names and notes. He also decides to be as successful and rich as Dr. Urbino and, when the doctor dies suddenly, immediately renews his courtship of Fermina.

Ma Vie en Rose (DVD): Georges Du Fresne, Michele Laroque, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Julien Rivière

Ludovic is a young boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child.

Solas (Alone) (DVD): Paco de Osca, Antonio Dechant, Ana Fernández, Angel Fernandez

Like Satyajit Ray's APARAJITO or Yasujiro Ozu's TOKYO STORY, director Benito Zambrono's SOLAS is a quiet, realistic film that examines relationships between parents and children, the decline of...Director Benito Zambrono's SOLAS is a quiet, realistic film that examines relationships between parents and children, the decline of traditional values, and urban anomie. While waiting for her husband to recover in a hospital, a mother (Maria Galiana) stays with her estranged daughter, Maria (Ana Fernandez), who fled her parents rural home in Andalusia because she could no longer bear her father's abusiveness and her mother's passivity. As the daughter struggles to find dignity in her job and her relationships with men, her mother quietly tries to brighten the life of her daughter and an elderly neighbor with only a dog for a companion. Gradually, Maria realizes that behind her mother's passivity is a strength and compassion that is rare in modern Spain. SOLAS, which means alone, is a low-budget film using little-known actors; it's strong and moving, however, with emotionally wrenching performances from the entire cast. Setting a high standard with his feature-film debut, Zambrano suggests that the solution to loneliness and poverty lies in remembering how to care for others.

Speaking in Tongues (DVD): Directors - Marcia Jarmel & Ken Schneider

Documentary - Four students become fluent in second languages while attending public school, with challenging and delightful results.