The Latin American and Spanish Film Festival continues in Whanganui this Saturday with two films focusing on the lives of ordinary people.
Promenade Women (Rambleras) from Uruguay is director Daniela Speranza's gentle and affectionate portrayal of three women living near Montevideo's famous seaside esplanade.
Victoria, 30-something and single, is looking for love. Jacqueline, her boss, is at a problematic stage in her relationship with her husband, and their batty old neighbour Ofelia is finding it hard living alone.
As their lives intertwine, all three women are faced with making new and important decisions.
The two main characters in the other film showing on Saturday don't have much choice about how to run their lives when, at the age of 90, with the country in financial crisis, their pensions disappear.
The Beginning of Time (El comienzo del tiempo) , a 2014 Mexican film directed by Bernardo Arellano, won Best Picture at the Beijing Film Festival and Best Latin American Film at Málaga in Spain.
A vastly tender film, taking an inside look at the oft-forgotten aged, we partake in the daily routine of Antonio and Bertha, as they face the hard reality of selling their belongings, peddling tamales on the street, and getting very little help from their remaining family.
Thursday night's offering is the 2015 Cuban historical drama Cuba Libre.
Written and directed by Jorge Luis Sánchez, as a touching tribute to his great- grandfather, the film tells the story of the 1895 War of Independence and the 1898 Spanish-American War, as Spain, Cuba and the US struggled for supremacy in the Caribbean.
In the didactic style we have come to associate with Cuban literature, the film shows the progress of the conflict through the eyes of two children, Samuel and Simón, who go to school and encounter the same playground fights and mini-injustices as children all over the world.
Stunning child actors Christian Sánchez and Alejandro Guerrero do a magnificent job of portraying both their own and their country's transition from innocence to awareness, as the three main armies swirl around them.
The film drips with symbolism, and manages to cover all the bases - politics, religion, economics, race and education - so the audience will leave with a much greater appreciation of Cuban history, as well as with some delightful inside knowledge on the famous Cuba Libre cocktail.
Promenade Women screens at 4pm and The Beginning of Time at 7pm on Saturday November 4 and Cuba Libre at 7pm on Thursday November 9.
All screenings are at the Davis lecture Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum, Watt St. Entry is free, koha appreciated.