Uruguay

1973. Uruguay is governed by a military dictatorship. One autumn night, three Tupamaro prisoners are taken from their jail cells in a secret military operation. The order is precise: “As we can’t kill them, let’s drive them mad.” The three men will remain in solitary confinement for twelve years. Among them is Pepe Mujica – later to become president of Uruguay. More

Jacob Kaplan lives an ordinary life. Nothing differentiates him from his other Jewish friends who fled Europe to South America because of WWII. Turning 70 has had a strange effect on him: he refuses to accept he is getting old. Grumpy, fed up with the new rabbi, his community and his family’s lack of interest in its own heritage, he embarks on an unusual and quixotic project: to capture a restaurant owner, who he is convinced is a runaway Nazi. More

Anina Yatay Salas is a pensive redhead who really does not like hername. Each part is a palindrome, which means it reads the same bothforwards and backwards. Her schoolmates are always teasing herabout this, especially Anina’s arch-enemy Yisel. When these two getinto a playground fight one day they are sent to the school head whodisciplines them with a nerve-racking punishment: they are both givena sealed black envelope which they are not allowed to open foran entire week. Haunted by nightmares, the days drag by endlesslyfor Anina. More

It is 1988, and Melo, a Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border, awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. Numbers begin circulating: hundreds of people will come. No, thousands, say the media. The well-informed speak of 50,000... The poor townspeople know what this means: 50,000 pilgrims in need of food and drink, paper flags, souvenirs, commemorative medals. Brimming with enthusiasm, the villagers not only hope for divine blessing, but above all for a small share of material happiness. More

Jacobo is 60 years old and the owner of a sock factory in Montevideo. He's single, living together with his mother. When his long-lost brother resurfaces to participate in the funeral of the deceased mother, Jacobo tries desperately to prove, that his life has added up to something. For his brother, Herman, is a successful director of a stocking factory in Brasil. So Jacobo wants to be able to present a wife and consequently he turns to Marta, his employee at the factory. Thereupon the two of them act as a married couple. More