"Actor: Ana Torrent"

• Close your eyes | Blu Ray | (24/06/2024) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Cria cuervos (DVD + Blu-ray)` | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £10.34   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Carlos Saura's (Carmen, Blood Wedding) touching and thoughtprovoking 1976 work remains one of the most important films in Spanish cinema. Released when Spain was just coming out of 40 years of Fascist rule it was nominated for a Golden Globe, and won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1977. Cria Cuervos (aka Raise Ravens) centres on an amazing performance by the young actress Ana Torrent (Spirit Of The Beehive, The Haunting) as the disturbed eightyearold girl living in Madrid with her two sisters and mourning the death of her mother, played by an ethereal Geraldine Chaplin, whom she conjures as a ghost.

• The Spirit Of The Beehive | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Set in rural Spain just after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War Victor Erice's debut film The Spirit Of The Beehive is a remarkable story of a child's innocence amid post-war traumas. Ana Torrent gives a stunning performance as a young girl adjusting to the new Fascist rule. When a travelling cinema comes to town and shows the Boris Karloff film Frankenstein Ana starts to worry about the fate of the Monster. Goaded on by her sister who tells her the Monster lives on the

• Cría Cuervos (Raise Ravens) (Dual Format Edition) | DVD | (27/05/2013) from £13.48   |  Saving you £6.51 (48.29%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Carlos Saura's (Carmen, Blood Wedding) touching and thought-provoking 1976 work remains one of the most important films in Spanish cinema. Released when Spain was just coming out of 40 years of Fascist rule it was nominated for a Golden Globe, and won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1977.Cria Cuervos (English translation: Raise Ravens) centres on an amazing performance by the young actress Ana Torrent (Spirit Of The Beehive, The Haunting) as the disturbed eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her two sisters and mourning the death of her mother, played by an ethereal Geraldine Chaplin, whom she conjures as a ghost.

• Tesis | DVD | (26/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Alejandro Amenabar's first film Tesis has impressive restrain for a debut, as you might expect from the man who went on to make Open Your Eyes and The Others. It's also the most intelligent consideration of the urban myth of snuff films seen onscreen in recent years. Ana Torrent is a priggish young student writing a thesis on violence in movies and finds out more than she wants to know. From the opening shots of her fascinated attempt to see a suicide victim mashed on the Madrid metro to her ambivalent involvement with Chemo (Fele Martinez)--a sinister nerd, obsessed with collecting dubious videos--and her flirtation with one of their principal suspects, Torrent portrays a traditionally plucky heroine along with her darker, more complicit and self-destructive side. As in his later work, Amenabar achieves maximum terror with minimum effect--dark rooms, gazes averted from torture we never see--because of his rich sense of the complexity of human character. What terrifies us here is the sense of our own demons. On the DVD: the DVD, which is presented in a 1.85:1 letterboxed video ratio and has Dolby Digital sound, comes with optional English subtitles, an intelligent, if slightly earnest documentary about the making of the film, a filmography, the theatrical trailer and a review article by the excellent Roger Clark. --Roz Kaveney

• No Do | DVD | (25/10/2010) from £5.38   |  Saving you £4.61 (85.69%)   |  RRP £9.99

  No Do

• Blood And Sand | DVD | (06/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  A fiery young heiress begins a passionate and destructive relationship with a promising young bullfighter and sets out to ruin his career.

• Vacas | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  With Vacas, his first feature, the Basque director Julio Medem set out all the elements of his audacious and idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking: intricate, circular plots; richly sensual imagery and highly stylised camerawork; a deft interweaving of fantasy and reality; and a thoroughly subversive attitude to Spanish tradition and folklore. Vacas takes a staple Spanish genre--the epic historical melodrama with all its bombast and macho posturing--and kicks the stuffing out of it while pelting it with cowpats. The action unrolls between two Spanish civil wars--the Second Carlist War of 1874-5, and the rather better-known conflict that started in 1936. An incident in the first of these sets up a feud between two farming families in a Basque valley, and the story leapfrogs down the decades taking in star-crossed lovers, log-chopping contests (a staple Basque competitive sport, it seems), mutilation, madness, incest, photography and any number of cows, through whose placidly bemused gaze we view a good deal of the action. Though Medem is dealing with all the solemn Hemingway-esque elements of romantic Spanishry--honour, blood and death--his approach is too playful to admit any real sense of tragedy. Much of the time the tone is closer to myth, and there's more than a touch of magic realism: axes fly miles through the air, and a tree in the woods can apparently eat people alive. In the end, of course, love triumphs over all. Medem's films have since gained greatly in sophistication and technique, but there's exuberance about this debut work that's irresistible. On the DVD: Vacas on disc has trailers for all five of Medem's features to date; filmographies for Medem and his two lead actors, Emma Suárez and Carmelo Gómez; and useful written notes on the movie by film historian Robert Stone. The transfer's clean and clear, doing justice to Carles Gusi's rich photography, with good sound and in the original ratio. --Philip Kemp

• Crusader | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  'Crusader' is an action thriller set in the world of telecommunications and television journalism. A journalist at a small television station using less than ethical methods manages to get an informant to divulge information that could potentially alter the world of telecommunications and the internet. In the mix are an array of colourful characters who are all connected by one common denominator: they all have something to hide...

• Crusader | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £36.99

• The Julio Medem Collection Vol.1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Vacas (1992): Director Julio Medem presents a saga spanning over half a century of the twisted goings on between two families in Northern Spain. Carmelo Gomez and Candido Uranga star as the fathers sons and grandsons locked through the ages in an absurdly stubborn and emotionally exhausting conflict. From the Carlist Wars of 1875 to the more famous Spanish Civil War of the thirties Vacas proves that sometimes there seems to be no escape from how family ties dictate our fate. Also starring Ana Torrent Emma Suarez and Pilar Bardem. The Red Squirrel (1992): 'The Red Squirrel' is an anti-macho parable by Spanish director Julio Medem; an intriguing story that draws its characters and audience into a complex game of lies and deceit it demonstrates the director's extraordinary and fresh visual style. Contemplating suicide as he stands against the parapet of a pier one summer night ex-pop star Jota (Nancho Nova) is interrupted by a sudden motorcycle crash. Rushing to the scene he discovers the biker to be a young attractive woman with amnesia (Emma Suarez). Masquerading as her boyfriend he names her Lisa invents a shared history for the two of them and whisks her off on a holiday to the Red Squirrel campsite. Here he reinforces his deception by parading the facade of their long-term relationship in front of other the campers. However it is not long before Jota has to confront the surprising consequences of his lie as there is more to Lisa than meets the eye... A film full of ingenious mesmerising and cryptic images The Red Squirrel made a huge impact at Cannes Film Festival in 1992. Tierra (1996): Angel an exterminator recently released from a mental hospital comes to rid a small Spanish town of tiny grubs in the soil. The local wine-making industry has found these pests responsible for giving their product an ""earthy"" taste that has divided local opinion. While in town Angel becomes involved with two beautiful and very different women and impacts their lives on a grand scale. Can either of these women accept the fact that Angel travels with a ""ghost"" of himself or that he routinely speaks with the deseased townspeople?