Americano

The death of his mother draws a young Frenchman (Demy) back to his childhood home in Los Angeles as he prepares to wrap up his mother’s estate. Things become complicated when he discovers that she was very fond of a woman named Lola (Hayek), who appears in her will. Martin combs Los Angeles for his mother’s mysterious friend and companion, finding no trace of her.  Traumatized at the sight of his mother’s body in the morgue, he drives to Tijuana in search of Lola, thinking she should inherit his mother’s apartment. But is Lola, his childhood playmate, truly the woman who brightened his mother’s life in Los Angeles — or is she a darker femme fatale, echoing the titular screen character from one of Jacques Demy’s key works? AMERICANO is a deeply moving drama about inheritance and legacy that deftly mines the past of a true-life filmmaking family, while at the same time weaving a mesmerizing fictional narrative about coming to terms with unattended grief and uncomfortable pasts. The film features a stellar cast that, perhaps not incidentally, includes the children of famous film personalities -- Geraldine Chaplin, Chiara Mastroianni and Demy himself -- in addition to Salma Hayek.