Icíar Bollaín

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

Dir. Víctor Erice · With Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, Icíar Bollaín

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

Dir. Ken Loach · With Ian Hart, Rosana Pastor, Frédéric Pierrot

One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...

Dir. Icíar Bollaín · With Laia Marull, Luis Tosar, Candela Peña

In the year 2000, Maixabel Lasa’s husband, Juan Maria Jauregi, was killed by ETA. Eleven years later, she receives an incredible request: one of the men who killed Juan wants to meet with her in the Nanclares de la Oca prison in Araba (Spain), where he is serving his sentence after breaking ties with the terrorist group. Despite her reservations and her immense pain, Maixabel Lasa agrees to meet face to face with those who ended the life of the person who had been her companion since she was 16 years old. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance’, she said, when asked why she was willing to confront the man who killed her husband.

Dir. Icíar Bollaín · With Blanca Portillo, Luis Tosar, Urko Olazábal

As a director and his crew shoot a controversial film about Christopher Columbus in Cochabamba, Bolivia, local people rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.

Dir. Icíar Bollaín · With Luis Tosar, Gael García Bernal, Juan Carlos Aduviri

Alma’s family has been producing quality olive oil in the Baix Maestrat area of Spain’s Castellón for generations. Yet changing pressures in the industry have made their traditional practices economically untenable, and the family is now in the mass-production poultry business. Alma’s grandfather has not spoken in years. Sadness envelopes him, and he no longer wants to eat. His sons—Alma’s father and uncle—are impatient with him, but Alma understands her grandfather. She realizes he has been grieving for a thousand-year-old olive tree that the family has uprooted and sold to pay some debts. (A sadly common reality in Castellón at present.) Unable to bear the idea that her grandfather could die without seeing this terrible wrong corrected, Alma undertakes a quixotic mission to locate the tree and return it to the family orchard, so that her grandfather may have peace in his final days.

Dir. Icíar Bollaín · With Anna Castillo, Javier Gutiérrez, Pep Ambròs