Secrets of the Heart

Javi is nine, living in a small Spanish town. His older brother Juan tells him about the abandoned house outside the village: the voices of the dead can be heard there. Javi goes with his friend Carlos and does hear something. At home there is a room that is always kept shut; his father was found dead in it and nobody talks about it. The boy starts asking. Slowly he works out that wherever the adults go quiet something is hidden, and that all of the secrets connect to one another. Montxo Armendáriz directs; a hundred and five minutes. Andoni Erburu plays Javi, with Carmelo Gómez and Charo López in the cast. It competed at Berlin in 1997 and was Spain's Oscar entry that year.