El Compromiso

In this crime parody, two fumbling detectives try to solve a murder without getting murdered, seduced, or outwitted in the process.

Tita is passionately in love with Pedro, but her controlling mother forbids her from marrying him. When Pedro marries her sister, Tita throws herself into her cooking and discovers she can transfer her emotions through the food she prepares, infecting all who eat it with her intense heartbreak.

Encarnacion is a beautiful villager and Petronila is her jealous, evil nemesis. When Petronila's love interest, a fetching young Spanish lieutenant, starts to fall for Encarnacion, Petronila gets even by simply destroying his sanity with a vile potion. Petronila begins to delude Encarnacion with suggestions that she is actually a "segua" or a female spirit that attacks men.

Surprised by an unexpected witness, robbers murder a woman who curses them. Little do they know of her connection with a treacherous sect indeed. Their chosen location to hide the loot turns out to be an adventure lodge where the owners are offered a talisman that supposedly grants wishes. Naively, they wish for a sum of money. Next day their beloved son unexpectedly dies. The exact sum they wished for is offered in accident insurance. Coincidence, or fate? The event lures the couple into a downward spiral. Meanwhile, the robbers are drawn to members of the sect who succeed in seducing and hideously murdering two of them, but one escapes. The owner comes upon the loot. It is again the exact same amount that he has rejected from the insurance company. Now convinced of the power of this amulet and incapable of escaping the consequences of their wish, the mother, gone mad, forces her husband to make a final wish: to bring their son back to life.

Recently divorced, 72-year-old Violeta lives alone in her childhood house, tending to her lush tropical garden and making plans to turn her property into a boarding house. When she discovers the bank is about to take away her house, she breaks all the rules to hold onto her home and her freedom.

In Nicaragua, 1977, corruption and abuse of power are everyday occurrences under the Somoza family’s dictatorship. Eruptions of violence lead to a civil war, which the Sandinista revolutionaries win – at least for the time being. Against this backdrop, the conflict between a young soldier of the Somoza regime and his family, who sympathize with the insurgents, is illustrated.

A naive village girl leaves for city during transitional times for Costa Rica.

Alejandra and Joaquín are a couple marked by his ups and downs. His emotional instability has left him unemployed again, which has made the relationship even more complicated. Alejandra does not understand why everything is so difficult for her husband, nor the reasons for his unhappiness, when he seems to have everything.