Spanish for Adults (2008)

A tiny classroom is a meeting point and a shelter for those who have come to Spain driven by the "European dream" to start a new life. Brought together by fate, these immigrants share disillusionment, alienation and yearn for a return home. But they haven't counted on their extraordinary language teacher Maria Antonia. Hiding a sadness of her own, Maria is on the surface playful, engaged and determined, though she does not speak any other language except her mother tongue Spanish, to excite her students with whatever it takes to break through their own dark stories. 48 year-old Maria Antonia gets her inspiration from her dreams. She is devoted to her life dream of becoming an actress. It seems sometimes that the classroom transforms to the stage, with Antonia as a leading actress on it. Fiction and reality touch one another in her small, hermetically sealed classroom, a place where Maria is the star and her students the audience. Visually playful with distinctive animation and melodramatic theatre sequences, full of giant, quiet tragedies, Spanish for Adults leaves a poetic and lasting impression. That life will always throw adversity our way - it is not a case of trying to avoid it, but rather how we live our lives through it and after it.