Elías Querejeta PC

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn.

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

Elisa has not seen her father Luis for nine years, but she receives a telegram from her sister Isabel in a moment of crisis in her marriage with Antonio telling that her father is ill. Elisa decides to travel to the countryside of Madrid with Isabel and her brother-in-law Julián and their two children to visit Luis for his birthday. Elisa decides to stay with her father when her sister returns to Madrid with her family and she gets closer to Luis, understanding why he left her mother years ago. Later she tells him that Antonio cheated on her with her best friend Sophie and their relationship has ended. When Antonio unexpectedly arrives in the house, Elisa makes a decision about her life.

Angela is a young waitress who turns her back on society when she meets and falls in love with Pablo, a reckless criminal delinquent. Along with Pablo’s gang of car thieves, the pair embark on a drug and disco-fueled robbery spree as they hurtle toward oblivion.

Ana, an eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her grandmother and two sisters, mourns the death of her mother.

The young but traveled Ana arrives in a manor in the countryside of Spain to work as nanny of three girls and finds a dysfunctional family.

After the closure of their shipyard in Northern Spain, a few former workers: Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina keep in touch. They meet mainly at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico. Santa is the most superficially confident and unofficial leader of the group. A court case hangs over him relating to a shipyard lamp he smashed during a protest against the closure. José is bitter that his wife, Ana, is employed when he is not.

A drama teacher casts a woman in a play about torture, and the two eventually become lovers. As production of the play develops, the director begins to receive threatening letters.

Three veterans of the Spanish Civil War go rabbit hunting. While doing so, old wounds open up.

Carlos is a young student, just 21. Nice or annoying as he likes, enjoys provoking and transgreding. In the night he goes out to meet his friends in the Kronen, a bar. Every situation can be taken a little farther. There are no limits, no accepted barriers. And more each time, each adventure is chained to the next, as if it were a continuous night. A long description of people: grandfather, parents, sister, girlfriend, friends. And, among that, the obscure will of living every minute as if it were the last one. But something which happens puts Carlos and his friend against a reality they have been trying to ignore.

Ana and her husband Antonio arrive in the manor in the countryside of Spain where she worked as a nanny many years ago, for the centennial birthday of the matriarch.

When the single middle-aged Luis travels from Barcelona to bury the remains of his mother in the vault of his family in Segovia, he is lodged by his aunt Pilar in her old house where he spent his summer of 1936 with her. He meets his cousin Angelica, who was his first love, living on the first floor with her husband and daughter, and he recalls his childhood in times of the Spanish Civil War entwined with the present.

Angela and her young son Guille travel to the big city to see Leo, her father and the boy's grandfather, when he suddenly takes ill. However, they arrive to discover that he has just passed away. Charo, the dead man's lover, explains the dire traits suffered by the paternal business: a hall with seven billiard tables.

Bored 15-year-old school chums Rai Manu and Javi dream of sexual adventures and exotic resorts while the well-off population of Madrid flock to the beaches on a summer holiday. The youths hang around the concrete wasteland killing time by reading the sex classifieds and pushing their luck. They masturbate, thieve, fight with their families and get involved in a drug bust. Finally Rai, the most daring and restless of the trio - gets shot while trying to steal stereo gear from a car. Each adolescent faces a dreary home life but when they get together they enjoy each other's company to the full. The film is an engaging mixture of comedy drama and the pathos of life in a Madrid neighborhood.

The greedy relatives of a paralysed 45-year-old amnesiac millionaire go to extreme lengths to help him recover his memory.

Julián, a middle-aged single doctor, is reunited with Pablo, a childhood friend who has just married Elena, a beautiful young woman.

A group of Africans clandestinely reaches the coast of southern Spain. Among them is Alou, a 28 years old Senegalese. As all his belongings are stolen while in Almsería, he has no choice but to engage in street vending. His only pleasure are the letters he writes to his family to tell the vicissitudes of his Spanish adventure.

Juan Sahagún, since childhood, feels passion for his mother. One day in the street he sees a woman identical to her. He follows her and finds out that she works as an actress in a theater company, so Juan decides to hire the whole company to represent the people who have influenced him in his past. They recreate the same situations of yesteryear and Juan acts as the child he was, to relive the memories already forgotten.

Los desafíos presents three separate stories that are linked by an American presence in Spain in the 1960s, with Dean Selmier playing the role of the American male in all three.