Fernando Fernán Gómez (1921-2007), actor, writer, playwright and film director, was for decades one of the most important figures in Spanish culture. His close friends and relatives reveal another facet in which he stood out above all: that of being an excellent conversationalist, capable of hypnotizing and seducing those who listened to him.

In the half-light of a an old stately home, Samuel Davila and his grandfather Paul, once a revered writer, create schemes to repel the latest in a long line of psychologists come to cure the grandson of his severe agoraphobia: some delicious biscuits with added spice, a refreshing glass of water with added laxative

This movie doesn't have any coherent plot. It's the portrait of the lives of different people in the hard years of post-war in Spain (the 40's), and how they manage to survive in a country desolated by the war. Like other films: La colmena or Roma (Fellini) it shows us lots of characters and some moments of their lives.

Thirteen-year-old Ramon is on the verge of many adolescent discoveries -- and the confusion that goes along with them. Shy and awkward, he's moved from town to town throughout his childhood and believes that life is about winning and losing. But he soon learns it's all about survival. Like Ramon, Spain is in transition (President Francisco Franco is about to die); it's a time of social upheaval marked by change, illusion and struggle.

Norberto Lopez Amado's They're Watching Us is about a cop who becomes obsessed with a case. Juan (Carmelo Gomez) is ordered to head up an investigation concerning a businessman who has been missing for almost three years. The officer who worled on the case previously now resides in a mental institution and is unable to say anything other than, "They're watching us." A priest (Roberto Alvarez) explains how a series of disappearances in the area have supernatural underpinnings. As Juan is absorbed deeper and deeper into the case, his mother is concerned for him.

David is a teenager who feels he doesn't belong to a life where his family, friends and the girl he loves seem not to understand him.

Julia, an only child of an affluent, bank owning family living in Madrid, escapes from her family to get over her grief that her boyfriend has been imprisoned. Julia is a well educated woman, having studied in Switzerland and England, who wants to become a writer. Julia drives to a little village in Asturias called "Corralbos del Sella" and there she stays in a mansion "llendelabarca" of an old childhood friend "Pilara" she had spent many a happy summer with. Also living there is Pilara's mother in law Tia Gala, and her grandson Juanito. Julia's relationship with caretakers, teacher and priest makes Julia, a woman of the spanish capital, perhaps for the first time to not feel so alone.

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.