To date, Víctor Erice has only directed two feature films, yet both have attained a kind of classic status which guarantees them a place in anyone's history of Spanish cinema. Winner of the Best Film award at the 1983 Chicago International Film Festival, El Sur returns to the same world of childhood fantasies and terrors Erice had already so brilliantly explored in The Spirit of the Beehive (see July 9), yet moves in an even more disturbing direction. Young Estrella (Sonsoles Aranguren) lives in a small northern Spanish town with her parents, immigrants from the South. A deep and special relationship develops between father and daughter; he teaches her to divine water, and together they go on assignments searching for new wells. One day, Estrella discovers a love letter her father is sending to an old flame, a movie actress whom he knew long ago in the South. A fascination with her father's past turns into an obsession with her parents' native region; "the South" no longer becomes a geographical location, but a certain state of mind, linked with lost loves and youthful political ambitions. Told as a long flashback, El Sur deftly maintains the delicate balance between the various realities-memory, dream, lived experience-which envelop its characters. In the crucial role of Estrella's father, Italian actor Omero Antonutti (Padre Padrone) is outstanding. Richard Peña