"Actor: Karra Elejalde"

• The Dead Mother | Blu Ray | (02/10/2023) from £13.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Ismael (Karra Elejalde, Timecrimes) breaks into the house of a fine art restorer and shoots the homeowner dead, leaving her daughter orphaned and traumatized for life. Years later Ismael is working in a bar where he sees the daughter again. Paranoid that she has recognised him and will report him, he kidnaps her and holds her hostage, demanding that her hospital pay a ransom for her release.As he spends more time with her a strange bond develops that causes him to delay the ransom request or fulfil his threats of throwing her in front of a train. But he can't delay forever A gothic thriller with pitch-black humour that recalls the Coen brothers, Juanma Bajo Ulloa's sophomore feature won a host of prestigious international awards and was a precursor to the Spanish genre explosion. Product Features 4K restoration of the film supervised and approved by director Juanma Bajo Ulloa Uncompressed stereo 2.0 audio Audio commentary by Bajo Ulloa The Story of La Madre Muerta - a documentary on the making of the film featuring behind-the-scenes images and interviews with the cast and crew Victor's Kingdom [El reino de Victor] (1989, 38 mins) - Goya Award-winning short film by Ulloa, restored in 4K Gallery of behind-the-scenes and promotional imagery Trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by Xavier Aldana Reyes, author of Spanish Gothic: National Identity, Collaboration and Cultural Adaptation, and newly translated archival writing by Juanma Bajo Ulloa, co-writer Eduardo Bajo Ulloa and an appreciation by Nacho Vigalondo Limited Edition soundtrack CD featuring Bingen Mendizábal's sumptuous score

• Timecrimes | DVD | (04/05/2009) from £7.55   |  Saving you £12.44 (164.77%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Lauded short film director Nacho Vigalondo makes his feature debut with this tense, unstoppable vision of science and natural law gone awry.

• Almodovar - Vol. 2 | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  A collection of inimitably uproarious comedies from Spanish icon Pedro Almodovar! Flower Of My Secret (1995): Leo (Paredes) leads a secret double life as an author of romantic fiction. However despite her success as the best-selling Amanda Gris her husband doesn't love her her best friend is strangely distracted and her mother and sister are too busy bickering to notice that anything's wrong. Abandoned by her muse and seeking solace in the bottle since the collapse of her ma

• Kika | DVD | (04/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Young cosmetic artist Kika (Forque) is called to the mansion of rich American Nicholas (Coyote) in order to make up the corpse of his stepson Ramon. As it turns out Ramon is not actually dead and he begins an affair with Kika. However the path of true love never did run smooth and the pair must survive the threats of Kika's previous affair with Nicholas the mystery surrounding the all-too suspicious death of Ramon's mother and Ramon's former psychologist...

• The Red Squirrel | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The Red Squirrel sees Jota, an ex-pop star with a penchant for doing nothing very much, standing on a bridge contemplating suicide. He’s pulled back to reality by a dramatic motorcycle accident and goes to help the victim, an attractive young woman apparently physically unscathed but with severe amnesia. At the hospital he is assumed to be her boyfriend, and so the deception begins, as he invents everything from her name (Lisa) through to the details of their imaginary four-year relationship. Though based on a lie, it gradually becomes real but is Lisa really an amnesiac or is she deceiving the deceiver? Who is the mysterious Felix, leaving pleas on a late-night radio programme to his missing, mentally disturbed 25-year-old wife, Sofia? As an array of incidental characters get drawn in, each seems to be practising their own deceit. This is a beautifully wrought, endlessly thought-provoking film, complemented by Alberto Iglesias's fabulous score. The two leads are superb: as Jota, Nancho Nova is both fey and hypnotic while Elisa (Emma Suárez) is wonderfully whimsical. Not surprisingly, it garnered a whole heap of awards, from Best Foreign Film at Cannes to Best Score at the Goya Awards. And the significance of the title? Red squirrels are, apparently, quick and cunning creatures; just like human beings. On the DVD: The Red Squirrel is presented in Dolby Digital original Spanish soundtrack with option of English subtitles and anamorphic widescreen print. The usual stuff is on offer as special features, including trailers for other world cinema films, filmographies of the director and two leading characters, and a concise but considered analysis of the plot.--Harriet Smith

• Vacas | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  With Vacas, his first feature, the Basque director Julio Medem set out all the elements of his audacious and idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking: intricate, circular plots; richly sensual imagery and highly stylised camerawork; a deft interweaving of fantasy and reality; and a thoroughly subversive attitude to Spanish tradition and folklore. Vacas takes a staple Spanish genre--the epic historical melodrama with all its bombast and macho posturing--and kicks the stuffing out of it while pelting it with cowpats. The action unrolls between two Spanish civil wars--the Second Carlist War of 1874-5, and the rather better-known conflict that started in 1936. An incident in the first of these sets up a feud between two farming families in a Basque valley, and the story leapfrogs down the decades taking in star-crossed lovers, log-chopping contests (a staple Basque competitive sport, it seems), mutilation, madness, incest, photography and any number of cows, through whose placidly bemused gaze we view a good deal of the action. Though Medem is dealing with all the solemn Hemingway-esque elements of romantic Spanishry--honour, blood and death--his approach is too playful to admit any real sense of tragedy. Much of the time the tone is closer to myth, and there's more than a touch of magic realism: axes fly miles through the air, and a tree in the woods can apparently eat people alive. In the end, of course, love triumphs over all. Medem's films have since gained greatly in sophistication and technique, but there's exuberance about this debut work that's irresistible. On the DVD: Vacas on disc has trailers for all five of Medem's features to date; filmographies for Medem and his two lead actors, Emma Suárez and Carmelo Gómez; and useful written notes on the movie by film historian Robert Stone. The transfer's clean and clear, doing justice to Carles Gusi's rich photography, with good sound and in the original ratio. --Philip Kemp

• The Nameless | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Trying to reach the limits of evil... but evil has no limits! In Spain the vanished six years old daughter of the editor Claudia (Emma Vilarasau) is found completely mutilated in a well by the police being recognized by her husband only due to a bracelet and her shorter leg. Five years later Claudia divorced and addicted to prescription tranquilizers receives a short phone contact from her daughter. She looks for the former detective in charge of the investigation and together with a reporter of a magazine of parapsychology they find the existence of a diabolic sect called ""Los Sin Nombre"" that searches for the essence of pure evil...

• The Julio Medem Collection Vol.1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Vacas (1992): Director Julio Medem presents a saga spanning over half a century of the twisted goings on between two families in Northern Spain. Carmelo Gomez and Candido Uranga star as the fathers sons and grandsons locked through the ages in an absurdly stubborn and emotionally exhausting conflict. From the Carlist Wars of 1875 to the more famous Spanish Civil War of the thirties Vacas proves that sometimes there seems to be no escape from how family ties dictate our fate. Also starring Ana Torrent Emma Suarez and Pilar Bardem. The Red Squirrel (1992): 'The Red Squirrel' is an anti-macho parable by Spanish director Julio Medem; an intriguing story that draws its characters and audience into a complex game of lies and deceit it demonstrates the director's extraordinary and fresh visual style. Contemplating suicide as he stands against the parapet of a pier one summer night ex-pop star Jota (Nancho Nova) is interrupted by a sudden motorcycle crash. Rushing to the scene he discovers the biker to be a young attractive woman with amnesia (Emma Suarez). Masquerading as her boyfriend he names her Lisa invents a shared history for the two of them and whisks her off on a holiday to the Red Squirrel campsite. Here he reinforces his deception by parading the facade of their long-term relationship in front of other the campers. However it is not long before Jota has to confront the surprising consequences of his lie as there is more to Lisa than meets the eye... A film full of ingenious mesmerising and cryptic images The Red Squirrel made a huge impact at Cannes Film Festival in 1992. Tierra (1996): Angel an exterminator recently released from a mental hospital comes to rid a small Spanish town of tiny grubs in the soil. The local wine-making industry has found these pests responsible for giving their product an ""earthy"" taste that has divided local opinion. While in town Angel becomes involved with two beautiful and very different women and impacts their lives on a grand scale. Can either of these women accept the fact that Angel travels with a ""ghost"" of himself or that he routinely speaks with the deseased townspeople?