One of the founders of the Impressionist movement while also one of its most ruthless critics, too bohemian for the bourgeois and too bourgeois for the artists, Edgar Degas was a man of paradoxes. A loner, he only loved one woman without ever courting her, the American painter Mary Cassatt whom we follow closely as well. And it is in the company of the latter that at the twilight of his life, Efa and Rubio open the pages of Degas's notebooks to try to unravel the mystery of this genius steeped in contradictions.

In his best-selling book, Save the Cat! (R) Goes to the Movies, Blake Snyder provided 50 "beat sheets" to 50 films, mostly studio-made. Now his student, Salva Rubio, applies Blake's principles to 50 celebrated non-studio films (again with 5 beat sheets for each of Blake's 10 genres). From international sensations like The Blair Witch Project to promising debuts like Pi, from small films that acquired cult status like Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Euro-blockbusters like The Full Monty , from unexpected gems like Before Sunrise to textbook classics such as The 400 Blows, from Dogville to Drive and Boogie Nights to Cinema Paradiso, here are 50 movies that fit both the "independent" label and Blake Snyder's 15 beats. You'll find beat sheets for works from Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch, Roman Polanski, Danny Boyle, David Mamet, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Sofia Coppola, Stephen Frears, David Hare, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, and the Coen Brothers, among other renowned writers and directors. You will see how "hitting the beats" creates a story that resonates for audiences the world over. Why is this important? Because it gives both writers and moviegoers a language to analyse film and understand how filmmakers can effectively reach audiences. And especially if you are a writer, this book reveals how screenwriters who came before you tackled the same challenges you are facing with the film you want to write -- or the one you are currently working on.

In this wordless graphic novel, a galactic Robinson Crusoe is stranded on a desert planet, where he survives on what coconuts he can find. Until one day a delectable croissant, perfectly wrapped in plastic, lands on the shore of the beach, a gift from the gods. There's only one problem: Robinson's companion, Friday, also loves baked goods--and so begins a wild chase, the likes of which the solar system has never seen. This exhilarating, humorous take on a classic tale will delight children even as it introduces them to a seminal work of Western literature. The lack of text also means prereaders will be able to return to the story time and again without an adult's help.
"En esta novela grafica sin palabras, un Robinson Crusoe espacial esta varado en un planeta desierto en el cual sobrevive comiendo cuantos cocos puede conseguir. Hasta que un dia un delicioso cruasan, perfectamente envuelto en plastico, cae en la orilla de la playa, un manjar de los dioses. Existe solo una complicacion: a Viernes, el companero de Robinson, tambien le encantan los panes--y asi se desencadena una espectacular persecucion que jamas viese aquel sistema solar. Esta excitante, humoristica recreacion de una historia clasica deleitara a los ninos a la misma vez que les presenta una obra fundamental de la literatura occidental. La ausencia de texto le permite a los prelectores seguir la historia sin la intermediacion de un adulto."

This is a dramatic retelling of true events in the life of Francisco Boix, a Spanish press photographer and communist who fled to France at the beginning of World War II. But there, he found himself handed over by the French to the Nazis, who sent him to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp, where he spent the war among thousands of other Spaniards and other prisoners. More than half of them would lose their lives there. Through an odd turn of events, Boix finds himself the confidant of an SS officer who is documenting prisoner deaths at the camp. Boix realizes that he has a chance to prove Nazi war crimes by stealing the negatives of these perverse photos--but only at the risk of his own life, that of a young Spanish boy he has sworn to protect, and, indeed, that of every prisoner in the camp.