Battle of Caving Banks

Letters from Alou (Spanish: Las cartas de Alou) is 1990 Spanish film directed and written by Montxo Armendáriz.

Synopsis

Alou, a Senegalese man that has entered Spain illegally, can only find occasional jobs due to his situation. Thanks to the letters he sends regularly to his parents, we hear of his experiences and feelings as he laboriously tries to be integrated into Spanish society. He starts out on the coast of Almeria, working in the greenhouses. Then he travels to Madrid where he first comes into contact with illegal sales. He then makes his way to Segria, to work harvesting fruit, and, finally, to Barcelona, where he works in the clothes shop of another African immigrant. His adventure comes to an abrupt end when he's arrested by the police. But he crosses the Strait again, closing the circle that leaves a door open to hope.

Awards and nominations

Won

Cinema Writers Circle Awards
- Best Cinematography (Juan Amorós)
- Best Film
- Best Screenplay – Original (Montxo Armendáriz)
Goya Awards
- Best Cinematography (Alfredo F. Mayo)
- Best Screenplay – Original (Montxo Armendáriz)
San Sebastián Film Festival
- Golden Seashell (Montxo Armendáriz)
- OCIC Award (Montxo Armendáriz)
- Silver Seashell: Best Actor (Mulie Jarju)

Nominated

Goya Awards
- Best Director (Montxo Armendáriz)
- Best Editing (Rosario Sáinz de Rozas)
- Best Film
- Best Production Supervision (Primitivo Álvaro)
- Best Sound (Eduardo Fernández and Pierre Lorrain)
- Best Special Effects (Reyes Abades and Juan Ramón Molina)

References

External links

Letters from Alou at IMDb
African Film Festival of Cordoba-FCAT (license CC BY-SA-3.0)
Deveny, Thomas G. (2012). Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema. Scarecrow Press. pp. 26–34. ISBN 9780810885059.

Golden Shell
1953–1975	I Was a Parish Priest (1953) Sierra maldita (1954) Days of Love (1955) The Railroad Man (1956) Oh! Sabella (1957) Ewa chce spac (1958) The Nun's Story (1959) Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (1960) One-Eyed Jacks (1961) Arturo's Island (1962) Mafioso (1963) America America (1964) Golden Queen / Mirage (1965) I Was Happy Here (1966) Two for the Road (1967) The Long Day's Dying (1968) The Rain People (1969) Dead of Summer (1970) Claire's Knee (1971) The Glass House (1972) The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) Badlands (1974) Furtivos (1975)
1976–2000	Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (1976) An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977) Alambrista! (1978) Autumn Marathon (1979) The Orchestra Conductor (1980) Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) Demons in the Garden (1982) Entre Nous (1983) Rumble Fish (1984) Yesterday (1985) Half of Heaven (1986) Wedding in Galilee (1987) On the Black Hill (1988) Homer and Eddie / La nación clandestina (1989) Letters from Alou (1990) Butterfly Wings (1991) A Place in the World (1992) The Beginning and the End / Sara (1993) Dias contados (1994) Margaret's Museum (1995) Bwana / Trojan Eddie (1996) The Swindle (1997) Wind with the Gone (1998) What's Life? (1999) The Ruination of Men (2000)
2001–present	A Cab for Three (2001) Mondays in the Sun (2002) Gun-shy (2003) Turtles Can Fly (2004) Something Like Happiness (2005) Half Moon / Mon fils à moi (2006) A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007) Pandora's Box (2008) City of Life and Death (2009) Neds (2010) Los pasos dobles (2011) In the House (2012) Bad Hair (2013) Magical Girl (2014) Sparrows (2015) I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016) The Disaster Artist (2017) Between Two Waters (2018) Pacified (2019) Beginning (2020) Blue Moon (2021) The Kings of the World (2022) The Rye Horn (2023)