La Lengua de las Mariposas (Butterfly)

Title: La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly)
Released: 1999

After watching depressing De La Calle, Butterfly was a nice, light-hearted change of pace. The film is about the relationship between young Mancho (nicknamed gorrión, or sparrow) and his teacher, Don Gregorio, played by well-known Fernando Fernan Gomez. Set in 1936 Spain on the dawn of the Spanish-civil war in which Fascist leader Francisco Franco came to power, young Mancho discovers, through the help of his teacher, literature, the natural world, and the opposite sex. Simultaneously, tensions mount while the small-town community is divided between Republicans who support the existing democratic and secular government and right-wing nationalists who support a change in power. Moncho's family must choose their loyalties, even if they must hide their true ones.