Adios East Los
Three high school dropouts from the Los Angeles barrio, eager to escape their humdrum lives, steal a luxury boat and sail to Catalina Island in this 1999 video by William Douglas Lansford. Their long idyll (they plan to head onward to Tahiti and plant watermelons) is pleasant enough, but their modest misfortunes (unemployment, menial work) fail to make their escape fantasies compelling or elicit sympathy for their crime. Lansford's direction is academic and uninspired, and the kids' wooden attempts at street talk yield to predictable "us against the world" sentiments. 96 min. (FC) On the same program, Pan y libertad, a nine-minute short by Yvette Pita. (Metzli Video Cinema, 6:30)

The Flamenco Singer
In the 1860s a man hires an aging flamenco singer to entertain at his son's engagement party, only to watch his son fall in love with her. Josefina Molina directed this 1993 Spanish feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 113 min. (Biograph, 7:00)

Zorba the Greek
Michael Cacoyannis's 1964 remake of Auntie Mame, played in Greek drag with Anthony Quinn as a peasant packed with Life Force and Alan Bates as the dried-up British intellectual who learns how to dance and drink ouzo. It's false art of the most deplorable kind, but it has a few fresh moments amid its fuzzy pretensions. Mikis Theodorakis's buzzy score is still a Muzak favorite. With Irene Papas and Lila Kedrova. 142 min. (DK) (Biograph, 7:00)

Costa Rica Up Close
Three shorts from Costa Rica: Hilda Hidalgo's Stardust (44 min.) and La pasion de nuestra senora (17 min.), and a film Hidalgo directed with Felipe Cordero, Bajo el limpido azul de tu cielo (37 min.), all made in 2001. (Facets Cinematheque, 7:00)

The Escape
A group of convicts escape from a Buenos Aires prison in 1928 and try to adjust to their newfound freedom as they elude sadistic cops and settle old scores. Director Eduardo Mignogna cuts from one jailbird to another, tying each one's role in the escape to the character trait that landed him in prison and his strategy for coping with the outside world. Continuity is provided by the voice-over of one escapee who poses as the nephew of an elderly grocer whose wife the men have accidentally killed, but the frequent narrative leaps prove too distracting; this 2001 Argentinean drama tries to illuminate a complex social canvas but ultimately becomes a crazy quilt of con games and corruption. With Norma Aleandro (The Official Story); in Spanish with subtitles. 115 min. (TS) Tickets for this opening-night screening are $20, $15 for ILCC members. (Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium, 8:00)

A Successful Man
A political drama from Cuba (1986) about two middle-class brothers, one obsessed with success, the other with revolution. Humberto Solas directed; in Spanish with subtitles. 116 min. (Biograph, 8:00)

Pachito Rex: It's Not Over Until It's Over
The title character of this Mexican political fantasy (2001) is a pop balladeer turned president (Jorge Zarate) who's supposedly assassinated during a reelection campaign. The film zigzags through time, focusing on various characters who may have plotted to kill him or who tried to expose the conspiracy, but along the way Rex is also revealed as a corrupt, capricious egomaniac -- sort of a cross between Elvis Presley and Charles Foster Kane. In fact, Alberto Anaya's deep-focus, sepia-toned cinematography and Antonio Pla's lavishly expressionistic set design deliberately recall the Welles film. Director Fabian Hoffman can't quite straighten out the jumbled narrative, an allegory about the fascist tendencies of Mexico's ruling elite, but this is still a feast for the eye. In Spanish with subtitles. 86 min. (TS) (Biograph, 9:00)

Truhanes
In return for protection, a small-time thief in a Spanish jail promises to stick with a career criminal after they get out. Miguel Hermoso directed this 1983 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 98 min. (Three Penny, 9:00)

Requiem for a Heavyweight
A classic of liberal humanist filmmaking (1962), and almost completely worthless. Anthony Quinn is the fighter gone to seed, slogging his way through his final matches. Rod Serling's script (based on his television play) has a cool, computerized perfection; it pumps out all the right dramatic equations, and ends as something polished, elegant, and airless. With Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney, directed by Ralph Nelson (Lilies of the Field). 100 min. (DK) (Biograph, 9:30)

Missing Young Woman
"I came . . . to track down ghosts," says Lourdes Portillo at the outset of this video, less a documentary than an affecting elegy. In the last decade more than 200 young women have been raped and murdered in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, with many also showing similar signs of mutilation. Portillo interviews several women who managed to escape and connects the terrible loss of life with the effects of globalization: the numerous maquiladoras attract women who leave their hometowns for a rootless and vulnerable existence. Among the suspects are drug traffickers, a local gang, a group of bus drivers, and the police, but the killings remain unsolved. 76 min. (FC) On the same program, Descensor (2000), an Ecuadoran short by Mauricio Samaniego. (Facets Cinematheque, 4:00)

Student Segment
Five shorts: Jose Rubio's My Life (2001), Martina Watkins's Domestic Violence (2001), Samuel Espinosa's I Am (2001), Liliana Calderon and Gerardo Mancilla's Gay Rights Movement (2001), and Mind the Gap, made by four uncredited teenagers from the UK and the U.S. (Facets Cinematheque, 5:00)

12 Hours
Several stories intertwine over a period that stretches from dusk to dawn in this 2000 Puerto Rican feature, and director Raul Marchand Sanchez, to his credit, doesn't try to make them dovetail at the conclusion. Among the characters out for a night on the town are a trio of female coworkers, each bearing a hard-luck story but determined to have a roaring good time, and the daughter of one of them, a teenage girl who decides this is the night she should lose her virginity. As in many films with multiple story lines, the structure often seems forced, with some characters functioning as plot devices, and Sanchez subverts his best intentions with editorializing and maudlin dialogue. All things considered, this is a mess, but there's something appealing in its gritty look at San Juan nightlife. In Spanish with subtitles. 89 min. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, You Owe Me One (2001, 12 min.), a Mexican short by Carlos Cuaron. (Biograph, 6:00)

Around Flamenco
Two one-hour films from Spain, Paco Milan's Teruo, a Samurai Flamenco and Around Flamenco in the Streets of New York, both made in 2000. 120 min. (Facets Cinematheque, 6:00)

Personal Testimonies
Two films: Heather Courtney's documentary about immigrant day laborers, The Workers (2001, 48 min.), and Felix Zurita de Higes's El chogui (2001, 57 min.), a Nicaraguan-Canadian-Swiss-Spanish production. (Metzli Video Cinema, 6:30)

New Blood
A bandit is summoned by witches to lead his clan in this 2000 Venezuelan feature, a loose adaptation of Macbeth. Directed by Leonardo Henriquez; in Spanish with subtitles. 90 min. On the same program, The Delirium (2001, 5 min.), a Bolivian short by Jose Sanchez-H. (Biograph, 7:00)

Private Lives
After two decades in Europe, a woman returns to Buenos Aires to be with her dying father and is soon paying a younger couple to let her listen while they have sex. Fito Paez directed this 2001 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 97 min. (Biograph, 8:00)

The Bastard Brother of God
Benito Rabal's 1986 drama examines the effects of the Spanish civil war and Franco's rule on a young boy. In Spanish with subtitles. 106 min. (Three Penny, 9:00)

Loco Fever
Two con men promise to buy a fishing village's entire catch of scallops in this 2000 Chilean film by Andres Wood. In Spanish with subtitles. 90 min. (Biograph, 9:00)

Posthumous Memoirs
Adapted from Machado de Assis's classic Brazilian novel, this humorous romp begins in 1869 with the recently deceased Bras Cubas declaring that death has delivered him from any notions of subjective self-delusion and allowed him to recall his pleasant if inconsequential life with absolute candor. This conceit allows him to undermine the story whenever it begins to get too serious; in one hilarious scene the narrator stands in the foreground feigning embarrassment while his younger self rollicks in bed with his paramour. Born into a wealthy family on the eve of Brazil's independence from Portugal, he squanders every opportunity afforded him by birth, but his new hindsight permits him to shrug it all off. Director Andre Klotzel keeps up an appropriately brisk pace, and this 2000 feature never falters en route to its insouciant conclusion. In Portuguese with subtitles. 102 min. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, Push It (1999, 8 min.), an Ecuadoran short by Diego Araujo. (Biograph, 9:00)

Lucia
Humberto Solas directed this 1968 historical romance about three Cuban women from different decades. In Spanish with subtitles. 155 min. (Facets Cinematheque, 9:30)

Broken Hearts
A writer documents the clash of material values and poverty in a housing complex in Mexico City. Rafael Montero directed this 2001 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 120 min. (Biograph, 10:00)

Fugitives
A young woman and her boyfriend rob an office, then flee with her niece to southern Spain, where he abandons them both. Miguel Hermoso directed this 2000 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 98 min. (Biograph, 11:00)

Latitude Zero
A pregnant woman (Debora Duboc), abandoned by a colonel of the Sao Paulo military police, lives a near feral existence at a desolate bar adjoining a deserted gold mine. When a former cohort of the colonel's shows up (Claudio Jaborandy), she rages at him but eventually warms to his company and allows herself to be taken in by his ambitious plans. Adapted from a play by Fernando Bonassi, this 2000 Brazilian drama oozes atmosphere, and Jacob Solitrenick's cinematography locates a certain majesty in the rough subindustrial landscape. But director Toni Venturi fails to transcend the stagebound material: the leads generate a good deal of sexual tension and pathos, but the plot mechanics begin to weigh heavily as the drama approaches its climax. In Portuguese with subtitles. 85 min. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, Gray (2001, 11 min.), a Venezuelan short by Ignacio Crespo. (Biograph, 11:00)

La strada
Early mush (1954) from the master, Federico Fellini. The story -- about a circus strong man (Anthony Quinn) and the doe-eyed waif who loves him -- is an allegory, so you can leave as soon as you figure it out. It won't take very long. Costarring Giulietta Masina and Richard Basehart. In Italian with subtitles. 107 min. (DK) (Biograph, 4:00)

Bogota 2016
A Colombian sci-fi triptych about the effects of modern technology, directed by Pablo Mora, Ricardo Guerra, Jaime Sanchez, and Alessandro Basile (2001, 87 min.). On the same program, Carolina Vila-Ramirez's 14-minute Roam (2001). (Facets Cinematheque, 4:30)

The Resting Place
During a sojourn in the Argentinean countryside a young go-getter fascinated with the colonial era and his timid pal stop off in a sleepy provincial town to get their car fixed and wind up taking over a dilapidated luxury hotel whose eccentric owner has died mysteriously. The clash of cultures in this 2001 feature offers ample opportunity for satire, but directors Rodrigo Moreno, Ulises Rosell, and Andres Tambornino get lost in a meandering plot that involves a local bigwig trying to keep the hotel's past a secret. Though picturesque and fitfully funny, the film never finds the right tone -- not surprising given its trio of directors. In Spanish with subtitles. 93 min. (TS) (Biograph, 5:00)

Visionaries
The residents of a town in Spain's Basque region turn to a woman who has visions after a group of children claims to have seen the Virgin. Manuel Gutierrez Aragon directed this 2000 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 114 min. (Biograph, 6:45)

El bien esquivo
A historical drama set in 17th-century Peru, about the son of an Indian princess who must prove his father was a Spanish soldier. Augusto Tamayo directed this 2001 Peruvian feature, which will be shown in Spanish without subtitles. 130 min. (Biograph, 9:00)

Israel in Exile
This debut feature by Chicago actor, writer, and director Juan Ramirez is visceral, passionate, and relentlessly nonlinear -- much like Latino Chicago Theater, the company he ran during the 1980s and early '90s. Based in Wicker Park, LCT mixed the urban grit of Nelson Algren with the surrealism of Octavio Paz and Federico Garcia Lorca and the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This story of a down-and-out boxer haunted by various apparitions is powered by the same mix of stark realism and otherworldliness. Unfortunately Ramirez overdoes the surrealistic element, turning a fairly straightforward story of a man's search for redemption into a jumble of archetypes, religious images, and half-baked arty notions (scars that magically heal, characters who appear and disappear in a flash, hallucinations within hallucinations). Cinematographer David Russell makes even the mundane streets of Pilsen look gorgeous, but after a while the long, moody shots of urban landscape begin to seem like padding. 90 min. (Jack Helbig) (Biograph, 9:00)

Where the Poets Die First
This lightweight, plodding Brazilian romantic comedy tries to take us into the mind of a writer, but the mediocre script, broad acting, and sloppy filmmaking make it fairly painful. After the enormous success of his first novel, a self-absorbed author breaks up with his girlfriend of 12 years, and the two explore single life while he struggles to produce his second book. Faced with writer's block and looming deadlines, he turns the breakup into a piece of Kafkaesque literature with himself as "the Poet," endlessly persecuted on a battlefield and in a courtroom for his devotion to love. Directors Werner and Willy Schumann play around with arty camera angles and awkward jump cuts, but their story is driven by plot devices as hackneyed as a lover crawling out a window to escape a jealous husband. In Portuguese with subtitles. 90 min. (Hank Sartin) (Three Penny, 9:00)

Arregui, the News of the Day
Maria Victoria Menis's 2001 Argentinean feature opens with the search for a fugitive, Leopoldo Arregui (Enrique Pinti), chronicled in grainy video by vacuous television reporters, then relates in flashback what led the ordinary if grumpy middle-aged bureaucrat into such a mess. Everything in his life is broken: his television, the elevator in his building, his marriage, his grown children's lives, and the supreme court of Argentina, where he's been a clerk for 35 years. The revelation that he might have contracted AIDS during casual sex with a coworker plunges him into despair and then spurs him to violence. The predictable and heavy-handed script is partly a satire of TV news, partly a commentary on the country's rampant governmental corruption and ossified middle class; it makes some good points, but only when Arregui is visited by a parable-telling, hora-dancing rabbi does the film spark briefly to life. In Spanish with subtitles. 110 min. (Jennifer Vanasco) (Biograph, 6:30)

Amor brujo
Richard Islas's 2001 video incorporates 70s horror films to "make the audience question their religious beliefs." 25 min. (Facets Cinematheque, 7:00)

Netto Loses His Soul
A Brazilian costume epic (2001) about General Antonio de Souza Netto, a republican and abolitionist who fought in two protracted revolutions during the mid-19th century. Recovering from a battle wound during the Paraguayan War, Netto recounts six episodes from his life; they explore the political issues of the time -- slavery, antimonarchism, border disputes -- but the central figure, woodenly played by Werner Schunemann, never emerges as a personality. In fact, the only segments of dramatic interest are those without him, like one in which black ex-soldiers express their disillusionment with the cause. Brazil may have gone on to victory, but the film fights a losing battle with the forces of tedium. Tabajara Ruas adapted his own historical novel, assisted by four other writers, and directed with Beto Souza. In Portuguese and Spanish with subtitles. 102 min. (TS) (Biograph, 9:00)

Antigua My Life
A pregnant woman in a violent marriage faces prison after killing her husband in this 2001 Argentinean-Spanish production directed by Hector Oliviera, in Spanish with subtitles. 110 min. (Biograph, 9:30)

Memories
Randy Vasquez's Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story (2001, 63 min.), a U.S.-El Salvador film about a woman tortured by death squads who was given political asylum in the U.S. in 1983, and Luciano Capelli and Andrea Ruggeri's Something Remains: Nicaragua 22 Years Later (2001, 51 min.). (University of Illinois at Chicago, Lecture Center B2, 11:00 am)

The Barrio Murders
For seven years a serial killer has been preying on residents of East Los Angeles, and a female homicide detective, initially barred from investigating because the victims were gangbangers, teams up with a private detective who was her lover when she was 17 but then went to prison. She's torn between the LAPD and the cop-hating barrio where she grew up, but aside from that conflict and a chilling conclusion, director Jojo Henrickson delivers a pretty routine crime thriller (2001). 92 min. (FC) On the same program, Trailer 2 (2000, 5 min.), an Ecuadoran short by Tito Molina. (Facets Cinematheque, 9:00)

School
Hannah Weyer directed this 2001 documentary about a teenager in a family of migrant workers who's trying to keep up with her schoolwork during her freshman year in high school. 76 min. On the same program, It's All About Me (2000, 18 min.), a film by Ben-Hur Uribe. (DePaul Univ. Alliance for Latino Empowerment, 6:00)

Without a Trace
A young mother (Tiare Scanda) on the run from her drug-running husband strikes up a friendship with an art dealer (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) fleeing a border cop in this Mexican rewrite of Thelma & Louise. Director Maria Novaro approximates the grungy look and grotesque hyperbole of the Coen brothers' early films, adding bouncy and sardonic folk tunes as commentary. Some of the predicaments in this 2001 feature seem contrived, but it's warmed by a genuine camaraderie between the women, whose frustrations with men ultimately boil over into murder. In Spanish with subtitles. 105 min. (TS) Screening as part of the festival's Mexican night; tickets are $20, $15 for ILCC members. (Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium, 8:00)

Possible Loves
Brazilian cinema generally cleaves into the sexy (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands) and the socially responsible (Pixote), with the occasional hybrid (Bye Bye Brazil). This 2001 feature by Sandra Werneck falls squarely into the first category: after Carlos (Murilo Benicio) is stood up by a beautiful woman, the narrative leaps 15 years into the future, showing three different outcomes to his life. In the first he's a married attorney, bored with his secure life; in the second he's left his wife and child for a male soccer pal; and in the third he's a swinging single who still lives with his domineering mother. Apparently only one of these scenarios actually transpires, and screenwriter Paulo Halm and Werneck, much to their credit, never really specify which. Unfortunately most of the characters are either uninteresting or underdeveloped, reducing the whole thing to an academic exercise. In Portuguese with subtitles. 93 min. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, The Table Is Set (2001, 12 min.), a Mexican short by Kenya Marquez. (Biograph, 9:00)

A Cuban Legend
A refreshingly unconventional 2001 documentary on Cuban mural painter Salvador Gonzalez. A practitioner of the Yoruba religion who says his art is energized by astral forces, Gonzalez produces colorful and symbolically charged paintings. Director Bette Wanderman shows him at work in Cuba and Philadelphia, but instead of relying on dry and reductive narration, she uses handheld-camera movement to intermingle his art with the African-derived music and dance he brings to his Havana neighborhood. A wide-angle lens renders dancers and paintings with an aggressive physicality, and the tone is spontaneous and celebratory: while a woman explains her religion, a man beats out an engaging rhythm against his chair with his hands. In Spanish with subtitles. 79 min. (FC) On the same program, two five-minute shorts from Ecuador: Daniel Andrade's Tuyo hasta la muerte (2000) and Pablo Jose Mogrovejo's Test (2000). (Facets Cinematheque, 9:00)

Saturday
An Argentinean drama (2001) about six jaded people in Buenos Aires trying to change their lives. Juan Villegas directed; in Spanish with subtitles. 72 min. On the same program, Dos mas (2001, 19 min.), a Spanish short by Elias Leon Siminiani. (Biograph, 9:15)

One Dollar, the Price of Life
A one-hour Spanish film about gangs in Panama fighting over drugs and weapons, directed by Hector Herrera. On the same program, Video de familia (2001, 47 min.), Humberto Padron's Cuban film about a family learning that one son is gay. (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Lecture Center B2, 11:00 am)

The Princess and the Barrio Boy
A teenager who doesn't want her father to remarry tries to pressure him by dating a guy from East LA in Tony Plana's 2001 feature. 97 min. (Richard J. Daley College, 12:30)

Broken Silence
A Spanish film (2001) about a young woman and man involved with the maquis, embroiled in a guerrilla war against Franco's regime during World War II. Directed and written by Montxo Armendariz. 110 min. Tickets are $25, $20 for members of ILCCand Instituto Cervantes. (Biograph, 7:00)

The Faces of the Moon
Guita Schyfter directed this 2001 Mexican feature, an ensemble piece about five women from different nations judging a women's film festival. In Spanish with subtitles. 112 min. (Dominican Univ., 7:00)

Caiman's Dream
A Spanish thief, reunited with his father and uncle in Guadalajara, gets involved in the uncle's ill-planned bank robbery in this 2001 Mexican-Spanish production. Beto Gomez directed; in Spanish with subtitles. 102 min. (Biograph, 9:30)

90 Miles
Juan Carlos Zaldivar's personal and often moving 2001 documentary examines his emotional turmoil as a Cuban emigre to Miami. A committed communist at 13, Zaldivar joined the 1980 demonstrations against Cubans who were "betraying our revolution" by leaving for the U.S. in the Mariel boat lift. Then his father let him and his sister decide whether their family should join the exodus, and Zaldivar reluctantly agreed. He describes his journey with mixed emotions, noting both the false propaganda he heard in Cuba and his father's disillusionment in the U.S. As he records a recent visit to the island, sites from his childhood trigger black-and-white superimpositions, effectively conveying the mystery of distant memories. In Spanish with subtitles. 79 min. (FC) On the same program, Dusk (2001, 33 min.), a film by Chicagoan Jaime Mariscal. (Facets Cinematheque, 6:30)

Kisses for Everyone
A fun, gently risque coming-of-age story set in Cadiz, Spain, in the mid-60s. Three medical students are renting a house while they prepare for exams: the scion of a rich, politically connected family, a confirmed communist, and a devout Catholic intent on getting his degree. The rich kid comes home from the local strip club with a prostitute who's trying to escape a domineering madam, and before long she and her friends have taken up residence at the house, putting a damper on the young men's studies. Director Jamie Chavarri makes a few feints toward political and class issues, but this fluffy 2000 comedy never strays far from the sheets. With Roberto Hoyas, Inaki Font, and Emma Suarez; in Spanish with subtitles. 111 min. (Jennifer Vanasco) (Biograph, 7:00)

A House With a View of the Sea
A poor farmer whose wife has died tries to care for his son in this 2001 Venezuelan feature, directed by Alberto Arvelo. In Spanish with subtitles. 93 min. (Biograph, 9:00)

Arderas Conmigo
Miguel Angel Sanchez's 2001 Spanish feature concerns a teacher living with her grandparents who has a torrid affair with a student. In Spanish with subtitles. 100 min. (Three Penny, 9:00)

Dear Fidel: Marita's Story
Marita Ilona Lorenz is a documentarian's dream: the daughter of a German ship captain who fought for the Nazis, she met Fidel Castro in 1959, and after Castro allegedly arranged the forced abortion of their child she was recruited by the CIA and took as a lover Castro's archenemy, former Venezuelan dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. (And that's just the first half of the film.) Director Wilfried Huismann has gathered some remarkable interviews for this 2000 film, and if Lorenz sometimes seems jaded ("Dictators are pussies," she declares at one point), she remains strangely obsessed with the idea of meeting Castro again. In Spanish and German with subtitles. 92 min. (Hank Sartin) (Biograph, 9:30)

Great Day in Havana
First-time directors Laurie Ann Schag and Casey Stoll spent years researching this 2001 documentary on contemporary artists in Havana, a bright and appealing portrait of the painters, sculptors, choreographers, musicians, and actors who've flourished despite the country's economic crisis. Colorful and visually sensitive, the video suggests that Cuban artists tend to think collectively, focusing on their communities rather than pursuing private visions. However, it's pro-Cuban to the point of banality: emigres are spiritually bereft, Cuba is superior to other nations, and the smiling faces used to illustrate the younger generation strain credibility -- no group anywhere is this happy. In Spanish with subtitles. 83 min. (FC) On the same program, Silence (2001, 30 min.), a Peruvian short by Alonso Filomeno Mayo. (Facets Cinematheque, 9:30)

Freedom
This 73-minute Argentinean feature by Lisandro Alonso argues that our lives consist largely of unnoticed routines, which gain meaning only when observed by others. Whether they make for interesting viewing is a matter of opinion, but I was engrossed by this poetic portrayal of a day in the life of a humble and isolated woodcutter. Alonso's camera relentlessly follows him as he performs the tasks that determine his survival: cutting wood, clearing brambles from his camp, taking a shit in the woods, heating up lunch over a fire, washing up after hours of toil, driving a truckload of wood, preparing an armadillo for dinner. The film's first half contains no dialogue, as the woodcutter focuses on his daily routine; only when he gets a ride from a man and his son does anyone speak, and even then it's brief. Quite possibly Alonso was inspired by Chantal Akerman's groundbreaking Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, though the accretion of daily routines in this 2001 film doesn't lead to any dramatic payoff; this is a pure meditation on life's small moments. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, Trauco's Daughter (2001, 22 min.), a film by Francisca Fuenzalida. (Biograph, 11:00)

A Rare World/What's Up With TV?
The host of a television show is assaulted in a taxi by some toughs, one of whom suddenly recognizes him and confesses his fandom. Armando Casas directed this 2001 Mexican feature; in Spanish with subtitles. 95 min. (Biograph, 11:00)

The Lame Pigeon
A ten-year-old boy is sent to stay with his grandparents over the summer and discovers mysterious conflicts plaguing their extended family. Jaime de Armiñan (My Dearest Senorita) directed this 1995 Spanish feature, which is subtitled. 115 min. (Biograph, 4:00)

Bufo & Spallanzani
Based on a novel by Rubem Fonseca, this sleek Brazilian mystery taps into the postmodern recycling of noir conventions: a detective in Rio, investigating a woman's apparent suicide, suspects foul play on the part of her rich, ruthless husband and her novelist lover, and the lover's new story, about an insurance investigator looking into a death that may have involved witchcraft, plays out on the screen as well. In the tradition of Paul Auster, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and Manuel Puig, the two story lines comment on each other as well as on the detective genre. The film's symbolism is ambiguous at best (toads, which continue mating even when one of their limbs is set afire, represent mad passion), but director Flavio R. Tambellini gives the whole thing an elegant look, his shadowy foregrounds and bright backgrounds inverting the usual noir scheme. You may get lost in the middle, but you won't be bored. In Portuguese with subtitles. 96 min. (Hank Sartin) (Biograph, 6:00)

A Cab for Three
Schizophrenic Chilean comedy (2001) about a poor cabdriver (Alejandro Trejo) who's held up by two fast-talking misfits but then joins them in a series of robberies, raking in enough money to ensconce his family in a middle-class neighborhood. Director Orlando Lubbert serves up a good deal of lame slapstick as the trio execute their ill-conceived jobs and follows up with the obligatory cops-and-robbers shtick. Yet the film offers a compassionate portrait of Chile's urban underclass, who are cynical toward the government and resentful of the rich, and candidly conveys the hero's ambivalence toward his own class. In Spanish with subtitles. 90 min. (TS) On the same program, Down to the Bone (2001, 12 min.), a Mexican animation by Rene Castilo. (Biograph, 10:30)

To Love, Too Much
Two sisters in Mexico plan to open a guest house inSpain, but after one of them goes abroad to make arrangements, the other becomes romantically involved. Ernesto Rimoch directed this 2001 Mexican feature; in Spanish with subtitles. 97 min. (Biograph, 11:00)

The Invisible Children
Three young boys in a Colombian town start experimenting with black magic in this 2001 feature by Lisandro Duque Naranjo. In Spanish with subtitles. 90 min. On the same program, My Final Note (2000, 6 min.), a Puerto Rican film by Maite Rivera Carbonell. 90 min. (Biograph, 4:00)

The Brave Couple
A Peruvian biopic about left-wing journalist, essayist, and activist Jose Carlos Mariategui (1894-1930) and his friendship with poet and fellow journalist Cesar Falcon. Federico Carcia Hurtado directed this 2000 feature; in Spanish with subtitles. 102 min. (Biograph, 7:00)

If I See You I Wouldn't Remember
A man returning to his Peruvian hometown for his father's funeral meets a young woman who's desperate to flee to Argentina, and the two of them hook up with an archaeologist who wants to return a mummy to its burial place to prevent a volcanic eruption. This road movie by director Miguel Barreda Delgado serves up a bleak Peru in which street robberies are common, a bank can't accept deposits because its electricity is out, and a man casually suggests to his friend that they commit a double rape. The film's drifting characters may ring true, but too much depends upon a manipulative plot studded with coincidences, and the formulaic editing and cinematography don't help. In Spanish with subtitles. 89 min. (FC) On the same program, Martin Garcia, primer dia (2001), an Ecuadoran short by Galo Recalde. (Facets Cinematheque, 9:00)

No Pain, No Gain
A coming-of-age story (2000) about a Spanish teenager who recognizes that much of his family and social life is illusory. Victor Garcia Leon directed; in Spanish with subtitles. 91 min. (Three Penny, 9:00)

Tricky Life
A huge hit in its native Uruguay, this 2001 feature supposedly indicts the callous treatment of prostitutes in Montevideo and in the Spanish cities where many of them end up. In fact it's a glib romantic romp about a single mother of two (Mariana Santangelo) who jilts her married lover, gets a job in a brothel, meets a pimp who promises her better fortunes in Barcelona, and finds herself the suspect in a series of killings -- all for the sake of supporting her bratty sons. Director Beatriz Flores Silva provides a fairly gritty portrait of the sex trade in Barcelona, but her attitude toward prostitution is hopelessly muddled: it's glorified as an easy way out of a financial jam, and the protagonist winds up as a glamorous celebrity victim. In Spanish with subtitles. 100 min. (Biograph, 9:00)

Get a Life
In this 2001 French-Portuguese feature by Joao Canijo, a woman living in France's Portuguese community tries to find out why her son was killed by police and provokes the ire of her neighbors. 115 min. (Biograph, 9:30)

Maids
A spirited, kaleidoscopic comedy (2001) about the lives of five domestic servants in Sao Paulo, chatterboxes who confess to the camera and each other their aspirations, foibles, letdowns, and superstitions, as well as the class and racial differences that govern their world. Directors Fernando Meirelles and Nando Olival seldom show the maids' employers, though the women give us an earful about the proclivities of the upper class. The editing is occasionally rough and some of the characters' predicaments familiar, but by letting these maids and their kin speak their minds the directors humanize a tight-knit community of marginalized workers. In Portuguese with subtitles. 87 min. (TS) On the same program, Salad Days (2001, 20 min.), a Spanish film by Gustavo Salmeron. 90 min. (Biograph, 9:30)

Alegria de una vez
A teenager in Quito, less interested in school than in hanging out with his street friends, falls for a beautiful but fickle girl in this 2001 Ecuadoran drama. An early montage of faces in extreme close-up hints at the boy's emotional vulnerability, and his adventures as he tries to find his crush build sympathy, but director Mateo Herrera ultimately succumbs to stylistic cliche, as in a chase scene riddled with portentous blurred freeze-frames. 75 min. (FC) On the same program, Caribbean Christmas (2001, 24 min.), a Uruguayan short by Walter Tournier. 75 min. (Facets Cinematheque, 9:00)

Dust to Dust
If Evelyn Waugh were a Mexican punk he might have come up with this breezy, inventive black comedy about a pot-smoking slacker (Osvaldo Benavides) and his straight-arrow cousin (Rodrigo Cachero), united in their love for their grandfather and their dislike for their respective fathers. After the grandfather dies and the fathers ignore his wish for a sea burial, the grandsons hijack his urn and take off for Acapulco Bay, their journey filled with macabre twists and turns as they bicker, reconcile, and learn of the grandfather's secret past. Director Juan Carlos de Llaca is refreshingly wise in his treatment of the kids' alienation and rapport (less so in his stereotypical treatment of their repressed parents), and the film's giddiness is heightened by Checco Varese's gliding camera and a sound track pulsing with rock en español. In Spanish with subtitles. 96 min. (TS) (Three Penny, 9:00)

Taxi, an Encounter
The fragmented narrative of this 2001 Argentinean feature is highly derivative of the French New Wave, but director Gabriela David has studied her sources well. A young carjacker (Diego Peretti) steals a cab and drives around town, killing time until he can turn the vehicle over to a chop shop the next morning. Fate leads him to a young girl who's been shot in the shoulder (Josefina Viton), and their furtive attempts at bonding play out against a noirish landscape of urban isolation. David, making her feature debut, nicely understates her notions of heroism and moral choice, though she has trouble locating the dramatic thrust of her story until the final act, when the two characters confront each other. In Spanish with subtitles. 93 min. (Joshua Katzman) On the same program, Wedding Night (2001), a Mexican short by Carlos Cuaron. (Biograph, 9:00)