On the edge of the Antarctic Circle, in the years after World War I, a steam ship approaches a desolate island far from all shipping lanes. On board is a young man, on his way to assume the lonely post of weather observer, to live in solitude for a year at the end of the world. But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. The rest is forest, a deserted cabin, rocks, silence, and the surrounding sea. And then the night begins to fall...
Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.
Spain, 1950s. Montse's agoraphobia keeps her locked in a sinister apartment in Madrid and her only link to reality is the little sister she lost her youth raising. But one day, a reckless young neighbor, Carlos, falls down the stairwell and drags himself to their door. Someone has entered the shrew's nest... perhaps he'll never leave.
2013; A mysterious epidemic spreads across the planet. Humanity develops an irrational fear of open spaces that causes instant death. Soon, the world population is trapped inside buildings. As Barcelona descends into chaos, Marc sets off on a quest to find Julia, his missing girlfriend, without ever going outside.
A housewife struggles with her husband after he is possessed by a ghost.
Barcelona, Spain, 1921. A tough cop from Madrid arrives in the city to locate, under the suspicious scrutiny of corrupt local police officers, a significant amount of military weaponry stolen from a train, allegedly by revolutionary anarchists.
Greenland, 1908. Josephine, self-confident and bold wife of famous Arctic explorer Robert Peary, embarks on a dangerous journey in pursuit of her husband who is seeking a route to the North Pole. But Josephine is also naïve and ignores warnings from experienced polar travellers about the onset of winter. At great sacrifice the expedition reaches Peary's base camp. Josephine refuses to go home and wants to spend winter in the hut. Only the young Inuit woman Allaka, who lives in an igloo and knows about the cold, stays with her. As the long nights draw nearer, Josephine realises she has more in common with this woman from a different world than she thought.
Cetarti is drowning in nothingness. With no job or purpose, he spends his days inside watching documentaries on television, until one day he is informed that his mother and brother were gunned down. He travels from Buenos Aires to Lapachito, a decrepit town in the province of Chaco in northern Argentina to deal with their bodies and to get the life insurance money. There he meets Duarte, a sort of boss in the town and a friend of his mother's murderer who also kidnaps people for money. Cetarti's path will lead him to committing illegal acts to get his hands on the insurance money and to his involvement in Duarte's dark dealings, leading to an absurd and unexpected outcome.
Set in Catalonia, Painless weaves two stories: in one, starting during the Spanish Civil War and running through to the '60s, an asylum attempts to rehabilitate children who feel no pain, by teaching them physical suffering. In the second, in the present time, a brilliant neurosurgeon who needs a bone marrow transplant, discovers this dark past when he searches for his biological parents.
When Amador Coro gets out of prison for having provoked a fire, nobody is waiting for him. He returns to his home town, a small village hidden in the mountains of rural Galicia, to live with his elder mother, Benedicta, and three cows. Life goes on calmly, following the rhythm of the nature. Until the night when a fire devastates the region.
Victor Bukowski is an out-of-work actor with problems. He's got a lousy agent, he has a habit of falling out with directors and he's still in love with his ex-girlfriend. However, Victor is about to embark on an unexpected emotional journey which will make him confront his future and his past mistakes.
Petra doesn’t know who her father is. Her entire life, it’s been hidden from her. After the death of her mother, she embarks on a search that leads her to Jaume, a famous artist and a powerful, ruthless man. On her path to uncovering the truth, Petra also meets Jaume’s son, Lucas, as well as Marisa, his mother and Jaume’s wife. That is when the story of these characters begins to intertwine in a spiral of malice, family secrets and violence that drives them all to the edge. But fate’s cruel logic is derailed by a twist that opens a path to hope and redemption.
Based on a Basque folk tale, ”Patxi herrementaria,” collected by priest, archaeologist and anthropologist José Migel de Barandiarán in 1903, the story is set in the Basque region in 1845, in a universe inhabited by mythological diabolic creatures, battling to capture the souls of the unwitting.
Marisa Paredes is Leocadia ("Leo") Macias, a woman writing “pink” romance novels under the alias of Amanda Gris that are very popular all across Spain. Unlike her romantic novels, her own love life is troubled. Leo has a less than happy relationship with her husband Paco, a military officer stationed in Brussels then later in Bosnia, who is distant both physically and emotionally.
Kika, a young cosmetologist, is called to the mansion of Nicolas, an American writer to make-up the corpse of his stepson, Ramon. Ramon, who is not dead, is revived by Kika's attentions and she then moves in with him. They might live happily ever after but first they have to cope with Kika's affair with Nicolas, the suspicious death of Ramon's mother and the intrusive gaze of tabloid-TV star and Ramon's ex-psychologist Andrea Scarface.
After the closure of their shipyard in Northern Spain, a few former workers: Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina keep in touch. They meet mainly at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico. Santa is the most superficially confident and the unofficial leader of the group. A court case hangs over him relating to a shipyard lamp he smashed during protest against the closure. José is bitter that his wife, Ana, is employed when he is not. The gap between them is widening and he is fearful that she will leave him for a co-worker. Despite arthritic legs, Ana endures night shifts at a fish factory and thinks her looks are now lost. Not everyone seems to agree including her boss. Lino, an aging family man doggedly pursuing positions beyond his qualifications. The oldest member of the group, Amador, has degenerated into alcoholism after being abandoned by his wife; maintaining an increasingly transparent pretense that his wife will soon return from holiday.