Amaia Merino

Alba, 11 years old, passes her days in silence. She loves little animals. She has learned to cope with her mother's illness, helping her to use the bathroom. Alba plays silently so that her mother can rest during the day. One night Alba's mother gets worse, and has to be taken to the hospital. With no one else to take care of her, Alba is sent to live with her father, who she hasn't seen since she was three years old. Living with her father is almost unbearable. Embarrassment, her first kiss, visits to mother in the hospital, Edgar's tender efforts to get close to her, and bullying at school; these are some of the experiences that pave Alba's journey to puberty and to self-acceptance.

A grotesquely disfigured harpooner called Iguana is severely mistreated by his fellow sailors on a whaling ship in the 19th century. One night he escapes and takes up residence on a remote island. He makes himself ruler of the island and declares war on mankind. Anyone unfortunate enough to wind up on the island with Iguana is subjected to his cruel tyranny.

A beautiful woman turns to prostitution. She must surrender her income to the leader of a human trafficking ring, but her daughter’s illness and a drug addiction prevent her from delivering her usual share. An unexpected event will give her the opportunity to stop obeying and take justice into her own hands.

Asier and I grew up in the Basque Country. But one day he disappeared, later I found out he had joined ETA.

Starting her senior year in high school, Sara doesn't have many friends and is caught between an overbearing mother, and a more understanding father. With uneasiness at school and tension in the household, Sara escapes to smoke in a little alley alone – that is – until Andrea, a new classmate, arrives. A close friendship develops to all that can see, but behind closed doors, an intimate relationship unfolds, which, when discovered, throws everything into disarray.

At the end of the 19th century, a boy appears in an Andean village. Nicanor, the village priest, discovers that the child’s blood causes the crops to bear fruit magically, but for the boy to live, he must be fed human blood.

Is there an audience for Latin American movies? These are some of the questions posed by an Ecuadorian filmmaker whose latest movie was a commercial flop. He embarks on a query to find answers to his questions and relief for his despair. His research leads him to a giant contraband market in the port city of Guayaquil, where pirated movies from all over the world are sold for one dollar each. Here, he discovers a number of Ecuadorian low budget movies produced by amateurs, with titles he had never heard of before: from action packed productions to evangelical melodramas.

Between Marx and a Naked Woman is the adaptation of a novel written by Ecuadorian Poet, Jorge Enrique Adoum. The scenes of this film insert us into Ecuador in the sixties, when the electoral struggle, convoked by the military government for a new return to democracy, is in full force. Galvez’s left-wing party must elect its candidate, but he is shoved to one side because of the criticism of the party’s political leadership. While his struggle becomes bitter, he must withstand the frustration of not being able to offer full love to Margaramaría, another party member.

Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, November 26th, 1985, at night. Mikel Zabalza, a young bus driver, is arrested along with other people by the Guardia Civil as part of an operation against the ruthless terrorist gang ETA. When the other detainees are released, they denounce that they have been brutally tortured in the Intxaurrondo facilities. Besides, Mikel is not among them: Mikel has disappeared.

Every city has its secrets, but it is probably inside houses, behind their silent walls, where they are most intense and human. The Alabado House was built in 1671 as part of Quito’s colonial Old City, surviving centuries of earthquakes, poverty and decay. Over the past five years, dozens of manual laborers have been working to restore it. But its miraculous beauty conceals a long and tragic history. For it was the oppressed indigenous masses who built the Old City, the largest in Latin America.

The life and works of Ecuadorian writer Marcelo Chiriboga, a key figure of the Latin American literature and member of the “boom” generation. Through interviews, visits to different cities, archival footage and his most important book, a puzzle is woven that blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction.

November 7th, 2001. After a seventy years absence, the Ecuadorian national soccer team is close to qualifying for the first time to a Soccer World Cup. This documentary follows the events that took place during that historic date, when a whole country lived under the shadow of a soccer game.

Jonathan and Romario are two Afro-Ecuadorian children from the Chota Valley, one of the poorest regions of Ecuador. Their fate can be one of two: to become world-class footballers like Ulises de la Cruz, Chucho Benitez and Antonio Valencia, or farmers like Darwin. This documentary reveals the lack of opportunities, discrimination, and economic and social segregation that black communities face in Ecuador.

While her father is away, a girl hears strange noises from her sick mother’s room. As nature and humans suffer from foreign waste, she longs to see her mother—but is she ready for what’s behind the door?

Two soldiers accompanied by two women enter the Baztán valley on horseback. They are deserters from the army of the Indies who are fleeing to Italy. They arrive to claim the inheritance of one of them, León de Balanza, Captain in Peru and soldier without fortune. They are looking for old Balanzategui who works the land of his ancestors. The old man's refusal to distribute the farmland's land causes a serious conflict.

Agustín escaped to the moor to finish his thesis, he spends his days writing, feeding himself and giving small walks through a place covered by scrubland, steep cliffs and abyss that remain hidden behind an almost permanent fog. Everything changes when Lucía and her boyfriend Santiago arrive and set up their tent next to Augustín’s. What began as a few quiet days in the countryside gradually become a silent nightmare.

Joxean is not aware of the border in her country. He moves every week to sell pigs. For Kamaru, the border means every obstacle and danger. They both have to fight the same enemy.

Siblings Amaia and Aitor are about to turn fifty. They have no children. From a very young age they have lived apart from their parents, Kontxi and Iñaki, now retired. One summer they all meet up on the cruise ship 'Fantasía'. On the high seas time seems to have stopped, but beyond the horizon reality continues to forge its way ahead tirelessly.

1809-1810: mientras llega el día is a 2004 Ecuadorian historical-dramatic film, directed by Camilo Luzuriaga and starring Marilú Vaca, Aristides Vargas and Gonzalo Gonzalo. The plot is based on the book by Juan Valdano, and revolves around the events that took place in the city of Quito between August 10, 1809, when the First Cry of Independence took place in the Spanish colony of the Presidency of Quito, and on August 2, 1810, when the Massacre of the Próceres occurred in the hands of the peninsular authorities.

Adolescence is a difficult time. Just days before the regional championship, Judoca suffers a racist attack and has a crisis. In order to compete, she must work on self-control and self-esteem.