Dir: Pablo Berger. Spain-Denmark. 2003. 90mins.

A simpatico local comedy, Torremolinos 73 swept last week's Spanish Film Festival of Malaga, winning best film, director, actor and actress awards. Like last year's top Malaga winner and Spanish box office hit The Other Side Of The Bed (El Otro Lado De La Cama), produced by the same lead partners and picked up for international by Lion's Gate, what appears to be a product for local consumption could well attract foreign distributors with its ingenuity. If it fails to sell widely abroad, it provides a showcase nevertheless for first-time feature writer-director Pablo Berger and well-liked performers Javier Camara and Candela Pena. Full male and female nudity could complicate foreign release in certain territories. Local box office prospects look good for the feature, which was rolled out at the weekend by Buena Vista International Spain, thanks to a marketing campaign capitalising on the film's racy, comical and cultish 1970s-throwback elements.

Alfredo Lopez (Camara) is a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman in 1970s Spain forced by economics to travel by foot and accustomed to having doors slammed in his face. His only respite from this dreary existence is his beloved wife Carmen (Pena), a bashful hair-waxing technician eager to start a family. When Alfredo's boss Don Carlos (Diego) offers them the opportunity to earn a fortune by making home pornographic films for sale in Scandinavia, the couple can not refuse.

This is the set-up which Berger promptly pays off with a montage of Alfredo's and Carmen's home videos - costumed sex romps which become increasingly more playful. Alfredo sits uncomfortably through screenings for a contented Don Carlos, and the money starts pouring in. But Carmen still cannot get pregnant and is rattled when a Scandinavian fan recognises her in a department store. Meanwhile Alfredo, whose artistic pretensions find inspiration in Ingmar Bergman films, writes a feature script which Don Carlos agrees to produce. The shoot in Torremolinos with an unruly Scandinavian crew ultimately brings Alfredo's infertility to light.

Berger and crew do a good job capturing the styles and sounds of the 1970s, and the muted colours and flourescent-lit interiors of cinematographer Kiko de la Rica (Sex And Lucia) look appropriately aged to the decade. The script plays off 70's trends like Spaniards' fascination for sexy, open-minded northern Europeans, without dwelling on historical specificities.

Torremolinos' cleverness also lies in details such as Berger's use of Alfredo's growing interest in film to shoot video montages of plot-advancing scenes and his black-and-white homage to Bergman. Weaknesses include the dramatic confrontations of the film's second half, which fail to live up to the humour of the first, and disposable Scandinavian cut-out characters.

Camara and Pena, in turn, fill out their characters fully. Both exude charm, sincerity and innocence, even as they are shooting porn movies. Camara's benign appearance - exploited to perfection in Pedro Almodovar's Talk To Her (Hable Con Ella) as the male nurse Benigno - elicits sympathy. Girl-next-door Pena is Camara's female equivalent, proving here that she can carry comedy and drama with equal aplomb.

Prod cos: Telespan Producciones, Nimbus Films, Estudios Picasso, Mama Films
Sp dist: Buena Vista International Spain
Int'l sales: Estudios Picasso
Prods: Tomas Cimadevilla, Ghislain Barrois, Jose Herrero de Egana, Bo Ehrhardt, Lars Bredo Rahbek
Scr: Berger
Cinematography: Kiko de la Rica
Prod des: Julio Torrecilla
Ed: Rori Sainz de Rozas
Music: Mastretta
Main cast: Javier Camara, Candela Pena, Juan Diego, Fernando Tejero, Mads Mikkelsen