José Sacristán

Fighting for liberty, love, and your secret teenage lover are the themes of Confessions of a Congressman and our protagonist Roberto Orbea is a leader and follower of the ideals of his radical leftist opposition party, but he’s hiding a secret from the party and his wife Carmen: he can’t resist the cheap beautiful street teenagers that bad-boy Nes throws his way for various pleasures. Eventually the fascists find out about his proclivities and hire the blonde and angelic-looking Juanito to infiltrate Roberto’s life. But after a while Juanito starts to find his place with Roberto, with politics, and even with Carmen. With the elections fast approaching all three members of this strange throuple will have to decide how much they’re willing to lose to avoid revealing the truth.Read More »

The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »

Synopsis (Toronto International Film Festival):
Luis (Luis Bermejo) is desperate to fulfill his terminally ill daughter’s last wish: to own the prohibitively expensive “Magical Girl Yukiko” dress from her favourite Japanese cartoon. Unemployed, with no prospects, and blinded with grief, Luis turns to extortion when he crosses paths with the beautiful, mentally disturbed Bárbara (Bárbara Lennie). Her marriage threatened by the blackmail, Barbara reluctantly complies with his scheme, even as it sends her spiralling into a world of danger and degradation. Seeking revenge on Luis, she turns for help to the only person who truly knows how damaged she is: retired math teacher Damián (José Sacristán), who has dark secrets of his own. The trio descends into an infernal cycle of deception and double-crosses, in which the struggle between reason and instinct plays out to nerve-jangling effect.Read More »

Synopsis:
An art restorer is raped on the street by a gang; getting little support from her lover, she leaves him and is determined to change her life.
This film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
Award:
Ondas Awards, Best Actress, 1993Read More »

Miguel, the arrogant newspaper columnist at the center of “Madrid, 1987,” has spent decades building up a tough outer shell. Pompous, calloused, dismissive, he’s a parade float begging for a hole to be poked in it. That comes in the form of a would-be acolyte, Angela, and a malfunctioning door lock in this sweet, sometimes dull and certainly overlong film, written and directed by David Trueba. Miguel (José Sacristán) has been spouting literary analogies and trite aphorisms long enough that he believes them; Mr. Sacristán gives him equal measures of confidence and tediousness. But Miguel is lovably smug: when an autograph seeker interrupts his squiring of Angela (María Valverde), he signs her paper, “For Sonia, who has lousy timing.” Before long, he and Angela retreat to an apartment nearby, where the faulty door traps them in the bathroom, disrobed but not entangled.Read More »

The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »