Lola, a hot-blooded Spaniard, is deserted by her husband for a cool and calculating Aussie blonde. Lola is pregnant again but she and their daughter Lucia are left to starve while Ricardo spends all their savings on a sleek new set of wheels for his mistress. When he dies unexpectedly the family fortune, one flash car, remains with the mistress. Despite all his betrayals, Lucia sides with her father. Desperate and destitute in a country she doesn't like or understand, Lola's quest for revenge begins. Caught in the tempests of begrudging love, revenge, sibling rivalry, jealousy and passion, fourteen year old Lucia must find the strength to survive on her own terms. Aided to break free of her mother by her eccentric Aunt Manolo she struggles to find her own identity and her own quest for justice puts her on a collision course with her mother.—Biff
The story takes place in the 1960s, featuring a matriarchal home and dynamic. La Spagnola is the first feature film directed by Australian actor Steve Jacobs. With a melange of Spanish and Italian with subtitles, the film shows Mediterranean immigrants who came to Australia to settle in their own communities, creating their own subculture.
Lucia (Alice Ansala) lives with her temperamental and visceral mother, Lola (Lola Marceli) next to an oil refinery. Her father Ricardo (Simon Palomare), left them for a blonde Australian, Wendy (Helen Thomson). Lola forces Lucia to repeatedly go and ask her father for money and time and again, he refuses. Lucia, who idolizes her father, hates and blames her mother for causing him to leave and they are left nearly penniless when he refuses to support them financially. Lucia's transition to womanhood is wrought with pain and agony.
Lola's sister, Manola (Lourdes Bartolomé) comes to live with them. She puts a different nose job on things with a temper to rival Lola's but she's also mischievous and fun-loving. She plays music while she energetically works in the kitchen, dancing with the vegetables.
When Lola finds herself pregnant by Ricardo at some later time, she decides to abort the pregnancy by herself, with a knitting needle. Lucia begins to earn some money as an interpreter for an old, lecherous doctor, who is clueless about any language other than English. Lucia amuses herself by telling him whatever she wants. Suddenly, Ricardo is killed in an accident. He leaves everything to Wendy, leaving Lucia and Lola to fend for themselves in their unconventional, quirky, community. The film was written by Anna-Maria Monticelli, Steve Jacobs' partner and herself an actress.
