The award-winning actor in question is the talented Javier Cámara (the male nurse from Almodóvar's Hable con Ella / Talk to Her), and in Fuera de carta (literally "Off the Menu") he plays the openly gay chef Maxi, who runs the successful Madrid restaurant Xantarella in the gay-friendly neighbourhood of Chueca. With the help of his loyal maître d' Alex (Lola Dueñas, Pénelope Cruz's sister in Volver) he is hoping to finally obtain a Michelin star.

Complications arise when his 15-year-old son Edu (Junio Valverde) and his 6-year-old daughter Alba arrive on his doorstep -- the result of a previous sham marriage Maxi thought he had left behind. Like the sudden appearance of the little girl in Sandra Nettelbeck's Bella Martha, the kids' arrival is the result of the sudden death of their mother. As if two kids and a kitchen run like a hairdressing salon aren't enough to threaten a possible Michelin rating, a handsome ex-football player from Argentina (Chilean actor Benjamín Vicuña) moves in next door as well. The film also co-stars Chus Lampreave (Volver) and Fernando Tejero (Volando voy / My Quick Way Out).

Though Fuera de carta is the feature film debut of Nacho G. Velilla, it a reunion of sorts for the director and Javier Cámara, who worked together on the immensely successful TV series 7 vidas (7 Lives), which ran from 1999 through 2006 and also introduced Spanish audiences to Paz Vega (Teresa, El cuerpo de Cristo) and Blanca Portillo (Volver) amongst others. For the screenplay of his feature debut, Velilla collaborated with 7 vidas veterans David Sánchez Olivas and Oriol Capel as well as Antonio Sánchez Olivas, with whom Velilla worked on Aida, a TV series he created after 7 vidas.

Though a profoundly Catholic country, Spain has been at the forefront of European queer cinema ever since the Madrid-based Movida movement started celebrating diversity after the death of Franco, with director Pedro Almodóvar as it most famous exponent.

Though Almodóvar has since moved on to more nuanced portrayals of homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals -- Cámara's comic turn as a transsexual in 2004's La mala educación (Bad Education) is among the highlights on the actor's curriculum -- the success of his work from the 1980s and early 1990s paved the way for such commercial comedies as 20 centímetros and Reinas, in which homosexuality was no longer used as a sign of anarchy or transgression but simply an opportunity for inclusive comedy. Fuera de carta seems to fit into this mould.

Related links:

• 7 vidas on IMDb and Wikipedia
• the official website of Fuera de carta, with trailer (in Spanish)
• the Fuera de carta trailer with English subtitles