The First Latin American Film Festival
Tamara Acosta in the Chilean
film Revenge (La Desquite)
In a first for New Zealand, a festival of movies from Latin America comes to the Paramount Theatre in Wellington from Anzac Day through to 1 May 2002.
The First Latin American Film Festival is an initiative from Kerry Robins of DeLuxe Cinemas, and the Ambassadors of the Latin American countries represented in Wellington: Enrique de La Torre of Argentina, Edgard Telles Ribeiro of Brazil, Jorge Alvarez of Mexico, Carlos Appelgren of Chile, and Javier Leon Olavarria of Peru.
It is presented by Corona, Mexico's #1 beer.
The ambassadors are presenting a film festival with productions from their region in the hope that the event will contribute to the cultural calendar of this city. Latin American films have been seen in NZ in local festivals, with a number of commercial releases, but never before have the films been presented in a structured manner.
Selton Mello and Matheus
Nachtergaele in Brazilian comedy The Dog's
Will (O Auto
Da Compadecida)
Mother Mary in Brazilian comedy The Dog's Will (O Auto Da Compadecida)
The
First Latin American Film Festival features seven diverse
films that share a regional identity and deal with
different aspects of the same mosaic, from realistic urban
or rural conflicts caused by social contrasts and tensions,
to comedies satirising ancient customs and modern
morals.
The films include a surreal comic take on poverty and religion (THE DOG'S WILL), a contemporary comic smash built around candid talkback conversation (THE SENTIMENTAL TEASER), an Alcatraz-style prison drama based on the 1986 Peruvian riots (ALIAS LA GRINGA), a fantastical farce about hypocrisy and greed (THE DEBT), powerful women's STORIES (REVENGE, MINERVA'S QUEST), and a gritty social tragedy about class war (TO AND FRO).
Full details of all films follow.
Latin American cinema is as old as cinema itself, and the quality and originality of Latin American films have always been acknowledged. Since the 1960s and 70s Latin American features won major awards in all the important film festivals and Academy Awards. More recently, Latin American films are reaching the huge audience in the growing Hispanic population of the USA. Promising new directors are emerging, and their work is capturing the imagination of audiences around the world.
This selection of features will no doubt appeal to the imagination of local film-goers, and increase the growing awareness of Latin America in New Zealand.
And the natural venue for the Festival is the Paramount Theatre, well established as the premiere venue in New Zealand for film festivals.
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THE PROGRAMME
Thursday 25 April at 11am: The Dog's Will/O Auto
Da Compadecida
(Brazil) NB: FREE SCREENING!
Friday
26 April at 2pm and 8.30pm: Alias La Gringa
(Peru)
Saturday 27 April at 2pm and 8.30pm: The
Sentimental Teaser/El
Chacotero Sentimental
(Chile)
Sunday 28 April at 2pm and 8.30pm: To And Fro/De
Ida Y Vuelta (Mexico)
Monday 29 April at 2pm and 8.30pm:
The Debt/ La Deuda (Colombia)
Tuesday 30 April at 2pm and
8.30pm: Revenge/El Desquite (Chile)
Wednesday 1 May at
2pm and 8.30pm: Minerva's Quest/Entre La Tarde Y
La
Noche (Mexico)
Censorship certifications are still pending. Refer to newspaper ads, and to www.deluxe.co.nz.
All sessions screen at the Paramount, 25
Courtenay Place, Wellington,
phone (04) 384
4080.
Tickets for the free screening of The Dog's Will at
11am on Thursday 25 April will be available from the
Paramount from 9am on Thursday 18 April on a first come,
first served basis.
Advance ticket sales for all other films are available from the Embassy Theatre during normal opening hours. Fax credit card bookings to (04) 384 4408, or email to bookings@deluxe.co.nz (include credit card number, expiry date, contact name, phone number). On the day of screening, tickets will be available from the Paramount only.
****************************
THE PREMIERE OPENING
The First Latin American Film Festival will open with a invite-only reception hosted by the Ambassadors at the Embassy Theatre on the night of Wednesday 24 April.
****************************
THE FREE SCREENING
In a further act of generosity, the Ambassadors and DeLuxe Cinemas are providing a one-off FREE screening of the Brazilian film THE DOG'S WILL. This will take place on Anzac Day, Thursday 25 April, at 11.00am. Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis from the Paramount box-office at 9.00am on Thursday 18 April.
**************************
THE FILMS
The Dog's
Will (O Auto Da Compadecida)
Brazil, 2000
104
minutes
Director: Guel Arraes
Winner of best film,
director, actor and screenplay at the annual Cinema Brazil
awards, this comedy takes barbed strikes at the
hyprocritical Catholic priesthood, becoming increasingly
incredibly strange in the process. When the hunger of
handsome dreamer Chico (Selton Mello) and quick-witted liar
Jack the Cricket (Matheus Nachtergaele )results in the death
of the beloved dog of their boss's wife, it sets in motion a
complex web of deceit that unravels in fine style. Filmed in
north-eastern Brazil, and paralleling that region in the
1930s with Europe in the Middle Ages, this comic saga of
poverty, loyalty, love clerical corruption, military
incompetence and infidelity, culminating with a judicial
showdown for human souls between the Devil, Jesus, and his
mother.
Alias La Gringa
Peru/Spain, 1991
92
minutes
Director: Alberto Durant
La Gringa (Germán
Gonzáles) cannot be incarcerated in any jail. After a night
of freedom following one escape, he is thrown into a wing of
an island prison with a professor who shares the space
reluctantly with Marxist terrorists who do their own
cooking. With the professor's assistance La Gringa escapes
his new prison, then returns in disguise to aid his
accomplice. But before they can escape, they are trapped by
a riot, and encounter corruption beyond the control of even
this charismatic criminal. Loosely based on the experiences
of an infamous convict at the island prison of El Fronton (a
Peruvian Alcatraz), and the infamous 1986 prison riot, this
powerful political drama from award-winning director Alberto
"Chicho" Durant plays like Papillon meets The Rock. Winner
of the Bogota Film Festival Golden Precolumbian Circle for
Best Film, Cinematography, and Actor.
The Sentimental
Teaser (El Chacotero Sentimental)
Chile 1999
90
minutes
Director: Cristián Galaz
A box-office smash in
Chile and winner of the Audience Award at the Chicago Film
Festival, this witty, fast paced and light hearted film is
based on a hugely popular talkback radio show with callers
who candidly disclose their trials, tribulations and
passions to an eccentric young host who dispenses off-beat
personal advice. Stories from three callers explore aspects
of Chilean culture and society: a student and a publicist
conceal their love affair only to end up with an unexpected
surprise; a young student discovers a family secret through
a childhood game of disguise and spying; and a young woman
and her husband cannot find time to be intimate in their
apartment crowded with three children and a
grandmother.
To And Fro (De Ida Y Vuelta)
Mexico,
2000
90 minutes
Director/writer: Salvador
Aguirre
This haunting, intelligent social tragedy about
the battle between powerful landlords and migrant workers
shows how despair can poison love, friendship and identity.
It marks the assured directorial debut of Salvador Aguirre,
former directorial assistant to Ridley Scott and Paul Leduc.
After working for three years in the USA, young Mexican
peasant Filiberto returns to his native village hoping to
remake his life and gain the respect he thinks he is due.
Things have changed in his absence: his mother is dead, and
his ex-girlfriend has married his best friend. Filiberto
soon becomes embroiled in a deadly war over water with
outlaw landowners, which will threaten his pureness of
heart. Winner of the FIPRESCI (foreign press) award for Best
Latin American Feature, the International Jury prize for
Best Film at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival, and the
Golden Apple First Works award for Best Film at New York
LaCinemaFe.
The Debt (La Deuda)
Colombia, 1997
98
minutes
Directors: Manuel Jose Alvarez and Nicolas
Buenaventura
This strange and magnificent farce is set in
the little town of El Paraíso (The Paradise). The local
usurer, known as Turkish, has been poisoned. His fruitless
quest for assistance among his neighbours sees him die in
the street. Though his death represents a relief for these
neighbours who owe him money, all know they have acted
incorrectly. As they search for the killer, try to liquidate
their own debts and cover up their hypocrisy, while coping
with their consciences, superstition and greed, another
death occurs - and Turkish appears to return. The powerful
magic realism on show is enhanced by fabulous expressionist
cinematography and a dynamic musical score.
Revenge (El
Desquite)
Chile 1999
120 minutes
Director: Andrés
Wood
This beautifully shot melodrama filled with
seduction, passion, rejection and revenge was abridged by
Andrés Wood from the TV mini-series that he in turn adapted
from a play by well-known Chilean writer Roberto Parra. At
the beginning of last century, Anita's family is killed in a
terrible flood. Her impoverished godparents send her south
to be lady-in-waiting to the wealthy but sickly Lucía and
her husband Don Pablo. Lucía dies when Anita is 15, and a
relationship develops between the young girl and Don Pablo.
When Don Pablo gets Anita pregnant and then begins making
designs on her friend, Anita finds a way to settle the
score.
Minerva's Quest (Entre La Tarde Y La
Noche)
Mexico 1999
107 minutes
Director/writer:
Oscar Blancarte
Minerva, a middle-aged writer (Angelica
Aragon), is failing at her work and unhappy with her life.
She decides to break with the conditions that do not allow
her to create the novel that has nested in her mind for
years. Consumed with bitterness and anger toward her father
and her lover, she sets out in search of her past and its
chimeras on a journey to her hometown in Mexico.
Paradoxically, on the journey she finds herself and begins
to write the story of her
life.