Paco Sarro

Madrid, 9 heures du matin. Des clients, qui ne se connaissent pas sont dans un bar. L'un d'entre eux sort et se fait tirer dessus, les autres se retrouvent bientôt prisonniers du bar.

Spain, the era of dictator Franco. Two female teachers are in love, but in those years and in that regime the love is not only forbidden but also a crime. To avoid their child been in prison, the parents of the one teacher, force her to be confined in a clinic for mental diseases, where she is heavily abused, the main treatment been electroshocks. After Franco's fall, and the change of things, she is free to return to her home, under the surveillance of her mother. Her father, more compassionate, helps her escape and find her lover. But the years of been under electroshocks have damaged her health, and make it impossible to live a normal life.

This film evokes Valencia illegal gaming back in the seventies. A young peasant -Ferran- plays cards not much to make a living but as a distraction of his daily routine. Ferran meets a larger-than-life character -el chino- who happens to play cards for a living. This other guy is depicted as a Toni Manero look alike but his charisma an arrogance lead the innocent Ferran to join him in his schemes to make money to end up betting all on the next card table. At some point the action moves to Madrid and Ferran steps down losing track of El chino who takes on more dangerous games making a living out of Russian Roulette until the round gets loaded. Based on real events this is no Hollywood epic but it captures the desperation of the characters very effectively.

'L'Alqueria Blanca’ ('The White Village') proposes a journey through time, up to the 1960s, which reflects the life of an inland village, in the Alcoià county. The atmosphere is eminently rural and is marked by the great differences between the two most representative families of the place, the Falcó and the Pedreguer, who star in a series of stories with love above the class difference, envy, jealousy and scandal. It all comes down to some unstoppable advances in society.