VOLVER (2006)

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) lives in Madrid with her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) and her husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre), who is always drunk. Her sister, Sole (Lola Dueńas), is separated and works clandestinely as a hairstylist for women. The two sisters lost their parents in a fire in La Mancha, their birth village, years ago. Their aunt, Paula (Chus Lampreave), still lives in the village and continues to speak about her sister Irene (Carmen Maura), mother of the two sisters, as if she were still alive. When the old aunt dies the situation changes and the past returns(volver) in a twist of mystery and suspense

Nominated for 1 Academy Award, Best Actress

DVD Special Features:

None

MAR ADENTRO (2004) (THE SEA INSIDE)

Directed by Alejandro Amenábar

In Spain, the former sailor Ramón Sampedro (Javier Bardem) has been quadriplegic for twenty-eight years and is fighting in court for his right of practicing euthanasia through an association that defends the freedom of choice and leaded by his friend Géne (Clara Segura). Ramón is introduced to the lawyer that is defending his cause, Julia (Belén Rueda), who has a degenerative fatal disease; and meets Rosa (Lola Dueñas), a lonely worker that has been abused by men. Their relationship changes the behavior and viewpoint of life of Rosa and Julia.

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards, Best Foreign Film and Best Achievement in Makeup

Won 1, Best Foreign Film

DVD Special Features:

None

HISTORIA OFICIAL, LA (1985) (THE OFFICIAL STORY)

Directed by Luis Puenzo

This story, based on real events that took place in Argentina, looks at a married couple torn apart by the campaign of killings and torture that sent thousands of accused political leftists to unmarked graves in the mid 1970s known as the Dirty War.
The story begins when Alicia (Norma Aleandro), a high school teacher and, Roberto (Hector Alterio), a wealthy businessman, adopt a little girl named Gaby (Analia Castro). After five years Alicia wonders about the parents of Gaby, a topic her husband has told her to forget as it was a condition of the adoption. Yet, he knows the ugly story of his daughter's adoption.
While hard to believe, Alicia, and others in Argentina, is not aware of how much killing and suffering has gone on in the country until the students where she teaches begin to complain that the "government approved" history books they read were written by government "assassins."
At this time she also has a long conversation with Ana (Chunchuna Villafane), an old friend, who had been in exile in Europe after she was tortured by paramilitary forces loyal to the brutal Argentine government. Alicia begins to do some serious political and personal research on her own.
She discovers the identity of Gaby's dead parents and finds out that her husband had a hand in the government nasty repression and has intensive dealings with foreign business interests. Alicia also learns the identity of the girl's grandmother (Chela Ruiz)

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards, Best Foreign Film and Best Writing (Written directly for the Screen)

Won Best Foreign Film

DVD Special Features:

None

NOTES ON A SCANDAL (2006)

Directed by Richard Eyre

Film based on Zoe Heller's novel in which Barbara Covett, (Dame Judi Dench) is a veteran and cynical schoolteacher who is close to retirement. She is barely tolerated by her less brilliant and acerbic colleagues who know nothing about her private life which consists mainly of taking care of Portia, her aging cat, and spending countless hours alone. The only means she has found to take the edge off her desperate loneliness is writing in her journal. When Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a younger, attractive woman, joins the faculty as an art teacher, Barbara watches her from afar and has nothing but caustic things to say in her diary about her clothing and her care-free manner. Mayhem ensues when Barbara cynically tells a bessotted fellow teacher that Sheba is had a sexual liaison with an underage student, Andrew Connolly (Andrew Simpson)

Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score

DVD Special Features:

None

LEBEN DER ANDEREN, DAS (2006)
(THE LIVES OF OTHERS)

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Film focuses on the horrifying, sometimes unintentionally funny system of observation in the former East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland (Marina Gedeck), a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly don't always think loyal to the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more

Won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film

DVD Special Features:

None